Taking actual working hours into account. After 10 months negotiating and 30 meetings, the management of the Austrian post, employee representatives and representatives from the post and telecom union (GPF) finally signed the company agreement introducing a new system to calculate working time for the 9,000 Austrian mailmen starting on January 1, 2013. “Until now, mailmen’s working time was based on a complicated equation taking account of the quantities delivered and the time spent on the road, in order to take the difference between urban and rural areas into consideration for instance. This system allowed us to evaluate, although not always in a very accurate manner, the workload in specific delivery centers and therefore assess our staffing needs” Michael Homola, the Post’s spokesman, told Planet Labor. With the new system, working time will be based on the hours actually worked by the mailmen, from an electronic GPS device, which can directly send the hours worked. This does not change the mailmen’s working time, which remains 40 hours a week. Extra hours will then be recovered, as is already the case, up to 150 hours a year, beyond which they will be paid as overtime. The Post believes this system should help assess staffing needs more accurately and be more flexible. However, about this and about GPS tracking, the GPF union had a hard time agreeing.
the Post’s spokesman, told Planet Labor. With the new system, working time will be based on the hours actually worked by the mailmen, from an electronic GPS device, which can directly send the hours worked. This does not change the mailmen’s working time, which remains 40 hours a week. Extra hours will then be recovered, as is already the case, up to 150 hours a year, beyond which they will be paid as overtime. The Post believes this system should help assess staffing needs more accurately
…Do you have information to share with us?