Swiss Post has agreed a low pay rise for its staff in 2011 as part of a package of measureswhile DHL plans to cut nearly 90 administration jobs in Switzerland in the first half year of next
year.The package negotiated with postal unions provides a ‘secure employment outlook’, according toSwiss Post. There will be a 1% salary increase for employees who work in accordance with the SwissPost collective employment contract (CEC). In addition, employees will benefit from a furthertraining fund, a partial retirement model and the possibility of early retirement.
Moreover, Swiss Post will continue to pay the entire employee contribution of 1% forrestructuring the Swiss Post pension fund, as in 2010. It is setting aside 0.8% of the total salarysum for individual performance-related remuneration. A separate agreement concerns the new anduniform redundancy plan intended for future restructurings.
Swiss Post said the 2011 package offers postal employees additional prospects of securing theirjobs, regardless of any specific operational changes. This includes the sum of CHF 5 million forfurther training strengthening the internal and external employability of staff. The socialpartners will decide together on specific use of the resources, the Swiss postal operator added.Employees aged 58 years or older with a basic annual salary of maximum CHF 85,000 can profit from apartial retirement model co-financed by Swiss Post while employees aged 62 or older will have theoption of taking early retirement. There will not be any legal entitlement to either option.
These salary measures for 2011 affect over 36,000 employees who are subject to the Swiss PostCEC and still have to be approved by the decision-making bodies of Swiss Post and the unions.Temporary personnel employed under CEC will also receive a general salary increase of 1%. Separatesalary negotiations will be conducted for the employees of the Swiss Post units PostBus,PostLogistics, InfraPost and SecurePost.
Meanwhile, DHL intends to eliminate 86 jobs in Switzerland, local media have reported. In thefirst half of 2011, 48 jobs are planned to be cut in Geneva and 38 in Basel as a result of DHL’sdecision to centralise the accounting department in Germany.
A DHL spokeswoman confirmed: “We are optimising the cooperation regarding the finance operationsat DHL at inter-divisional and cross-national levels. This applies to the countries of Germany,Austria and Switzerland, and we will continue operations from Germany in future.”
Individual talks were conducted with affected employees, she explained. The company will try tofind replacement jobs for those people internally at other departments in Switzerland or thefinances department in Germany.
