30 January 2010 - Franz Groter - © Hellmail Postal News

The chief executive officer of Lithuania Post has presented a plan to provide a 10% increase in pay for postal workers

The Lithuanian Ministry of Transport and Communications hosted a meeting with the Board of AB Lietuvos paštas on Thursday, during which the CEO of Lithuania Post introduced new measures to reduce losses and to increase the salaries of postmen up to 10 percent.

"The Board approved the action plan - aimed at stabilisation of the company’s financial situation and modernisation of its activities" said Director General Andrius Urbonas.

"One of the core measures – implementation of the new company’s management structure, which includes centralising similar administrative functions and reducing the number of positions, which are not directly related to postal activities“

According to A. Urbonas, the staff costs in the company make about 70 percent of all costs, and the administrative chain throughout whole Lithuania has yet untapped resources. He stressed that the reforms would not affect the most vulnerable chain of employees – postal delivery workers.

From 1 July 2010, it is intended that a rise in salary of up to 10 percent should be introduced for postal workers. According to the CEO, as part of reforming the structure of the company and striving for more efficieny, reducing the number of personnel dministration employees by 13 percent would provide the necessary savings to fund the wage increase - 16.5 million litas.

Following completion of its reforms, Lithunian Post still expects to finish 2010 with a 17m litas loss.

"We have already, after revising contracts with current providers of IT, money collection, cleaning, security and other services, we managed to save 4 million on annual company expenditure" said Andrius Urbonas.

"The presented optimisation plan does not include such measures as effective use of real estate non related to postal activities, employment of new areas of cooperation – these could also positively influence the final financial results for 2010“.

An additional cost-saving (from the 1st of February of this year) will be the reorganisation of rural post offices - open five working days a week.

"Considering the reduced need for postal services in rural areas, we decided to reorganise the work of such post offices on Mondays and Saturdays, which will allow 2.5 million yearly savings” said Director General of AB Lietuvos paštas Andrius Urbonas.

"In any case, these changes are not final and in considering the needs of the customer the working days of all rural post offices may have to be adapted accordingly” he said.

From the 1st of February, Lithuanian letter mail and periodicals delivered to rural areas will be for just five days a week – from Tuesday to Saturday. Delivery in urban areas will be unaffected.

Also under discussion is the possibility of giving administration employees 1 to 4 days of unpaid leave per month – saving a further 5 million litas, as well as optimising logistic routes. The company said that without the changes, losses for 2010 would be more than 50 million litas.

AB Lietuvos paštas has 7627 employees; the postal network embraces 736 post offices and 28 mobile post offices. Following the order of the director general, the closing of post offices foreseen by previous management, was discontinued, also, suggestions by Trade Unions regarding the minimum duration of the working day for rural post offices was accepted – at least two hours a day.

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