TNT finally reaches deal with Unions over job cuts
TNT Post has reached an agreement with Dutch Unions to reduce the number compulsory redundancies by 1,700.
The operator will still make 2,800 compulsory redundancies, it was confirmed.
Due to falling mail volumes, TNT Post said it requires 11,000 jobs to be cut. Allowing for natural attrition and voluntary redundancies, 4,500 compulsory job cuts were originally planned.
However, after continued negotiations with the Abvakabo FNV, CNV Publieke Zaak, and BVPP unions, that figure has been reduced. The decision has been reached that no more industrial action will take place.
TNT said the jobs will be kept through the “Auto Unit”, at TNT Post’s Parcel Service and elsewhere in the company.
The operator has also promised to study possible ways of keeping an additional 200 jobs at the “Auto Unit” during future organisational changes, and will also be offering 300 employees temporary employment up to the end of 2013.
The agreement brings an end to an extended period of uncertainty between TNT and the unions – with the latter ordering staff to strike on several occasions over the past two months.
The parties have also agreed to increase the involvement of assisted reemployment agency TNT Mobility, with the aim of decreasing the number of employees needing to claim unemployment benefit by an additional 500.
TNT and the unions will also study the ways in which employees in jobs that are scheduled to be shed can be assisted in finding work elsewhere through a secondment company to be set up by an external party. TNT Post and the unions have now jointly called on the government directly to help this plan succeed.
The Unions will discuss the agreement with their members in the New Year, with a vote expected at the end of January.
Dow Jones Newswires quoted Inge Bakker, of the CNV Union, as saying: “We’ve done as much as we can, and the postal workers realise that the reorganisation can’t happen without compulsory redundancies.”
Abvakabo FNV director, Peter Wiechmann, claimed that it “remains a tragedy” that thousands of people will still lose their jobs, but added it was important that many people will benefit out of the agreement.
