The fight for mail begins. According to the company’s management, 1,500 employees will leave it in March. The reason is said to be the restructuring of the company. However, the Minister of the Interior Jan Hamáček, whose department the state enterprise belongs to, does not like the downsizing. He invited the CEO to the rug for that.
“I will want an explanation, because in the current covid situation, the need for mail has become apparent. That is why I invited the CEO, the head of the supervisory board and a union representative on Thursday,” Hamáček wrote on Twitter.
According to unions, the time is not suitable for dismissal. They point to the growing volume of sent shipments at a time when shops are closed and the interest in buying goods from e-shops is increasing. And they assume that the habit of many people will remain even after the pandemic.
“They already have jobs on their heads, people are already missing somewhere, so I think they will be very busy,” does not understand the head of the postal departments, Jindřiška Budweiserová.
The opposition also wants to get involved in the negotiations on rescuing the postmen. “I was surprised by the information. I will want to discuss it, because I don’t think it is a strategically good step,” thinks the head of the People’s Party, Marian Jurečka.
“If it should apply to couriers, people in the field, then definitely not to lose weight there. Those people are now running at such a busy speed as never before,” adds STAN movement leader Vít Rakušan.
The functioning of the Czech Post is also criticized by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (YES). According to him, it is unacceptable for a state-owned enterprise to lay off workers, especially during a pandemic crisis.
The Czech Post employs almost 29,000 people. And they have been facing financial problems for a long time. Last year, the state-owned company reported a loss of 363 million crowns.
Among those released are, for example, postmen, clerks behind the counters or drivers. And postal unions say the layoffs could affect customers. The post office is already restricting services and claiming that it has few people in these professions.
A few weeks ago, the post office reduced the opening hours of branches due to a pandemic, and queues are now forming at post offices. People now shop more in e-shops and the company does not catch up.
However, the post office claims that it will suffice with a smaller number of employees and promises smaller queues at branches and faster delivery of packages. It wants to achieve this with a larger number of so-called packages. However, according to unions, the effect may be quite the opposite.
Česká pošta defends the restructuring and the associated redundancies by the fact that letter items are declining significantly, while parcel items are on the rise. In practice, this should mainly mean that customers will pick up their packages in so-called packing centers. The Czech Post currently has 2,200 of them throughout the country.
Already last June, the general director of the post office announced the changes and said that he wanted to focus on the parcel market, where the state-owned company has grown very strongly in recent years.
Czech Post also promises to simplify and streamline the shipment system. One of the latest innovations – two-speed delivery – the post office does not want to interrupt. This is despite the fact that next day delivery is used by only about eight percent of customers.
Watch the report from Televizní noviny HERE:
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