Tag: Israel Post

Israel Postal Authority has applied to the Ministry of Communications for permission to enter a range of new activities, now that the Knesset passed in its second and third readings an amendment to the Budget Arrangements Law to open the postal market to competition in 2006. Postal Authority chairman Jacob Edery believes that most of the services will be authorised soon.

The Postal Authority will undergo structural changes so it can turn into a government company with a business orientation, director-general Yossi Shelley said. The contracts of deputy directors-general and other senior staffers will be extended for only six months.

Postal Authority director-general Yossi Shelley trimmed manpower slots by 230 positions (including seven or eight highly paid executives), slashed overseas travel, cut back phone expenses, dispatched superfluous secretaries from executive offices to post-office teller courses – and survived.

Union heads threatened, senior officials complained to the communications minister and workers went out on sanctions, but Shelley got his way.

“There is still fat, as in any other government body,” he conceded.

The Israel Ministerial Committee on Legislation has approved the proposed postal law, which is due to turn the Postal Authority into a more flexible and competitive state postal company.

Committee chairman Justice Minister Yosef Lapid called the agreement “historic.”

As plans continue to revamp the Postal Authority, senior management is considering moving the nation’s postal service to a five day workweek, a move that would save an estimated NIS 10 million annually. If this were to be the case, the Postal Authority would close on either Friday or Sunday.

Postal employees would be required to work an additional hour a day to compensate.