Sweden: unions agree on the principle of restructuring Posten Norden but criticize the modalities

Necessary restructuring because of drop in mail volume.  Aside from the announcement of the appointment of a new chair, a restructuring program was presented on September 29th.  It should apply until 2014 and cost SEK 2.5 billion (€270 million).  Since the volume of letters and packages handled by the company is dropping, Posten Norden has to work more effectively explained Mikael Andersson, leader of the ST union (union of employees in the public sector) within Posten Norden.  This evolution will go through investments into IT and other forms of communication as well as the restructuring of different mail processing centers (processing and delivering mail and packages).  Thus, two new centers are going to be built in Hallsberg and Rosersberg.  In the long run, they will replace the existing centers in Västeras, Karlstad, Tomteboda (Stockholm) and Uppsala.  These changes are going to affect about 1,800 people and lead to 500 job cuts.  The package processing center of ånge is also going to be abandoned and its activity transferred to the Sundsvall, Östersund, Umeå and Luleå sites.  The company is also going to invest into new machines to sort mail and change its transportation mode, favoring rail transport.  The Hallsberg and Rosersberg sites were chosen because they’re close to the major railway lines.  Unions welcome the construction of new, bigger centers because they say they will offer better working conditions to part-time workers, career evolution and better working time planning.