Full agenda at the re-constitutive meeting of the ‘Post & Telecoms’ Trade Council in Vienna
2017-08-25 12:00
Today, CESI’s Trade Council ‘Post & Telecom’, reinstated by Presidium of CESI following its Congress in December last year, met for its re-constitutive meeting in Vienna. With a full agenda, ranging from the election of the Trade Council’s leadership to the adoption of new resolutions, the meeting was hosted by the Austrian postal services trade union section FCG-Post, an affiliate of CESI’s member organisation Eurofedop.
Manfred Wiedner (FCG-Post, Eurofedop) from Austria and Horst Sayffaerth (DPVKOM/dbb) from Germany were elected unanimously President and Vice-President of the Trade Council. Both have been steering the Trade Council for many years already. CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “I am glad there will be again a very competent leadership in our ‘Post and Telecoms’ Trade Council. Manfred Wiedner and Horst Sayffaerth are all experienced and dedicated trade unionists that bring in a wealth of expertise from the postal and telecoms sector.” Swiss Robert Métrailler (Transfair, Eurofedop) and Dutch Johan Traets (BVPP, Eurofedop) were re-elected as chairs of the Trade Council’s two working groups on telecoms and postal services by unanimous show of hands.
Keynote addresses were given by the President of Eurofedop, Fritz Neugebauer, as well as by the CEO of the Austrian Telekom AG, Alejandro Plater, and Walter Hitziger, member of the Board of the Austrian Post AG.
Resolutions were adopted on the need for fair(er) working conditions for older workers, higher salaries for more work and a worker-friendly management of digitalisation processes in the telecoms and postal services sectors. All resolutions are available in the resources section.
At the meeting, Klaus Heeger also presented a Memorandum of Understanding on a participation of CESI in the European sectoral social dialogue committee ‘Postal services’ which was recently concluded with UNI Europa, so far the only recognised social partner in this policy field on the workers’ side. Legitimised by a recent representativeness study of the EU’s agency ‘European Foundation of the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions’ (Eurofound) which had found that CESI is a relevant potential actor in European social dialogue on postal services, Klaus Heeger noted the importance of the Memorandum to make the voice of CESI’s affiliates in the postal services sector via European social dialogue. Oliver Röthig, Regional Secretary of UNI Europa, who came to Vienna as a guest of the meeting, expressed his appreciation of the agreement as an instrument to join forces to meet various challenges of the postal services personnel across the EU.
The next meeting of the Trade Council will take place in December 2017 in Brussels (Tbc).
