Tag: Israel Post

As sanctions by Israel Postal Company employees are beginning to cause hardship to the poor, residents of the periphery and others, Knesset Economics Committee chairman MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) demanded that a solution be found by the end of the week.
MK Yoram Marciano (Labor) will chair a team to examine a new bill that would look at all aspects, including postal rates and bulk mail.
Erdan, who was furious over the impasse between the Communications Ministry, which refuses to lower bulk mail rates to become competitive with private entrepreneurs and make money from it fears hundreds of workers will be dismissed as the postal company continues to lose money.
The Knesset committee supports the workers, Erdan said, but it also demands that they not refuse to hand out National Insurance Institute allotments to the needy, disabled and elderly.
The sanctions, which began over a week ago, have halted mobile postal service to outlying areas, prevented allocation of NII allotments to the public, stopped collection of certain government fees and made it impossible to switch health funds or register vehicle ownership.
IPC Director-General Avi Hochman said the government owns the for-profit postal company and that it was his job to warn about its deficits. However, he said, the government must provide the “promised security net” for the company until it stabilized financially.

The Israel Post Company said last week that due to dispute with Ariel Atias, Communications Minister, it would lay off 150 employees immediately and cancel the planned hiring of 700 contract employees as regular employees.

In a statement issued by the company it accused the communications minister of not implementing agreements guaranteeing the company’s financial standing.

A spokesman for the company noted that a year ago an agreement was reached between the postal company and Ministries of Communications, Finance and the General Federation of Labor in Israel which was supposed to furnish the company with the necessary standing. Since the agreement was reached the Minister has apparently done little to implement it.

In the statement the company also threatened to cut executive salaries by 10 pct and reduce the marketing budget because the company lost little over NIS 90 million in 2007 (around USD 30 million), more than double the projected loss.

The company which is the largest logistic provider in Israel provides its customers with highly sophisticated mail sorting technology at three centers in Israel; computerized point-of-service stations at the branches; a computerized system for tracking postal items.

It has a large transportation fleet that reaches everywhere in the country daily and sophisticated control mechanisms for collection and distribution of mail.