Union threatens protests over Austrian Post Office privatization

The Post Office trade union has threatened massive protests this autumn against planned privatization, which union spokesmen say will be too soon and not well enough prepared.

“It’s certainly going to be a hot autumn”, said union chief Gerhard Fritz in an interview with the Austria Press Agency.

The protests would begin with a demonstration on Friday next week when the state holding company for industry and 100 per cent Posr Office owner, OEIAG, was due to be given a privatization mandate for the Post Office.

He said postal workers’ representatives were not in principle against privatization, but they believed the Post Office would only be ready for the stock exchange at the earliest in 18 months’ time.

Growth plans submitted by the management so far were “at the best fantasies, but not yet strategies”. It would take time and further evaluation to see whether the plans were actually likely to bring the hoped for added value.

Fritz called for a reaction by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel. He said he could not imagine that the government wanted to privatize the Post Office just because it needed 300 million euros for the budget, and that it accepted the risk of the course crashing on the stock market. “That would be economically very incompetent”, he said.

In January this year, OEIAG supervisory board chief Alfred Heinzel said that up to 49 per cent of the Post Office could be sold on the stock exchange around May 2006. “Intensive work” was already being done for this, he said.

There were two alternative plans. Firstly, between 25 and 49 per cent could be sold on the stock exchange, or secondly, 25 per cent could be sold to a strategic partner, and 24 per cent on the stock exchange.

At the time, the union already made strike threats over the privatizaton plans.

The Post Office also said in January it would cut down 1,000 jobs in Austria this year at the same time as expanding its activities in East and South-East Europe. Staff costs in Austria would be reduced by 50 million euros to 950 million. (Schluss) qu