Solidarity entered into a collective dispute with the employer, and after May it may start a protest.
Trade unions demand a PLN 500 gross increase – with effect from February 1 this year. Every month, all the posters covered by the collective labor agreement would have to receive more. If the management does not agree to these conditions, Solidarity – gathering more than 15 percent. people employed by the country’s largest employer – will start a protest. Conversations of the management of the Post Office with the unions in it regarding the wage fund have been ongoing since the beginning of the year. The next round is planned for next Tuesday. The union believes that this is the last chance meeting.
“The union decided that there will be no protest if we sign a wage agreement on Tuesday. We will go to this meeting with goodwill. The question is whether the employer will show it, “says Bogumił Nowicki, chairman of NSZZ” Solidarność “Poczta Polska. From yesterday, the organization is with the employer in a collective dispute due to the lack of increases.
A spokeswoman for the company Justyna Siwek confirms that talks on the remuneration fund are scheduled for 30 April. In addition to “S”, the second representative organization – the Postal Union Workers’ Union will take part in them. However, Siwek does not inform whether the management sees a chance of an agreement. If it does not come to him, in the week of May 6, the members of the postal “S” will work in yellow vests. Such reflective vests with reflective tapes have been worn since last autumn – initially in France and later also in other countries, including in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
The next stage of the protest is to be a picket in front of the headquarters of the Post Office. The relationship is not disclosed yet.
“We applied for a raise at the beginning of the year, expecting it to be PLN 350 gross. During these few months, however, we did not get a positive response from the employer, who in our mind played for a delay. That’s why we raised the amount to 500 zlotys and changed the tone from expectations to demand,” reports Bogumił Nowicki.
In March, the board member of Poczta Grzegorz Kurdziel, in conversation with DGP, assured that any additional funds that the company will manage to find, “will be primarily allocated to increasing wages”. He stipulated, however, that any increase would depend on revenues and costs in the first months of the year.
Due to the scale of employment, wages are the main component of Poczta Polska’s costs (in 2017 it was 70%, ie PLN 4.2 billion, and the expenditure structure from last year has not yet been provided). In total, in 2016-2018 salaries in the company increased by almost PLN 700 gross, and including bonuses – by about 1.2 thousand. Last year The post allocated PLN 255 million to wage increases. The minimum postal fee is currently 2.5 thousand gross PLN. The statutory minimum wage is 2.25 thousand.
“An increase of 500 PLN is possible in our opinion, the Post Office is able to earn it,” convinces Bogumił Nowicki. “We have, for example, huge reserves in contracts with large clients, some contracts even below costs. We also agree to high penalties,” he argues. In his opinion, the adjustment of contracts would allow increasing revenues, and therefore profit.
The management emphasizes that the company must earn not only wages but also infrastructure investments, otherwise, it will not be competitive