Austria Post jobs safe but strikes possible
Anton Wais, head of the Austrian postal service Post AG, pledged the rumoured 9,000 posts job axe is “certainly not going to happen”.
Anton Wais, Head of the Austrian postal service Post AG, pledged the rumoured 9,000 posts job axe is “certainly not going to happen”.
Wais made the announcement after the summit on the company’s current crisis at the Finance Ministry where he met with the OVP’s Finance Minister Wilhelm Molterer and Infrastructure Minister Werner Faymann of the Social Democrats (SPO).
Wais said his negotiation partners promised to create circumstances on the political level to support the struggling company. Wais added that he hoped for fair competition rules to be agreed in the first half of next year as the Austrian postal service market will be liberalised by 2011.
Post workers union head Gerhard Fritz was however less euphoric, stressing that these announcements do not change anything about the union’s strike warning. Fritz said he is awaiting the Post’s supervisory board summit on 11 December when future plans are expected to be announced.
Fritz said he would not let Austria’s countryside post offices be closed down in the near future. SPÖ Minister for Infrastructure Werner Faymann said it is “politically unthinkable” to shut down 1,000 of the Post’s current 1,300 offices as a recent secret paper indicated.
