Austria - Union claims alternative to post office closures

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.austriantimes.at/news/Busine ... e_closures" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The postal workers’ union has an alternative to the post office closures the postal service (Post AG) wants to continue to engage in, according to today’s (Tues) edition of the newspaper Kurier.

It quoted union chief Gerhard Fritz as claiming daily business hours at small post offices could be reduced and staggered in accord with customers’ needs.

He denied that businesses chosen to be new Post partners and offer basic postal services would be able to provide better business hours.

"Post itself could select business hours according to the needs of customers, but it has not talked with us about staggered business hours," Fritz said.

Fritz claimed that Post in reality had no future strategy and had not been able to say how many post offices would eventually be closed.

"We cannot agree with a concept if we do not know what it entails and how it will be executed in practice," he added.

Fritz also claimed that a small post office would have annual revenue of 60,000 Euros whereas a Post partner would have annual revenue of only 15,000 to 16,000 Euros.

Post had announced last week that it had adopted a new strategy featuring an "offensive" on the internet in Austria and expansion of its package delivery service, especially in southeastern Europe.

Post chief Georg Pölzl presented the new strategy, saying that Post’s job cuts would continue. It has 27,000 employees, of whom 22,000 work in Austria. Around half of them have job tenure.

He said the cuts would be achieved through early retirements, so-called "golden handshakes," attrition and the transfer of Post workers to the interior ministry for administrative police work. He noted that 60 per cent of Post’s costs were for personnel.

He added that Post’s foreign competition would increase after liberalisation of the EU postal market at the beginning of next year but said it would not threaten Post since the Austrian market was too small for more than one full-service provider.

He promised that Post would use 75 per cent of its profit to pay an attractive dividend of 1.50 Euros a share.