Romanian Post employees are protesting against dismissals

Approximately 50 employees of the Romanian Post protested, yesterday, for three hours, in front of the company's headquarters, dissatisfied with having received dismissal notices, notices issued by management as part of the company's reorganization/restructuring process.

Regarding the protest of the company's employees, who were also assisted by the union leaders, Valentin Ştefan, the general manager of CN Poşta Română SA, told the newspaper BURSA: "We have given a little over 100 notices, and in this notification process the bosses are caught of structures and advisors to the general director. As for the heads of structures, out of over 60 heads, only a little over 20 will remain. I wish the union leaders who participated in today's protest/picketing had conveyed this information, namely that the notices do not concern postal factors but persons employed in the central administration of the company. I wish union leaders would protest taking them out of production, especially since they make far more monthly than the postal workers they represent. Moreover, among those who protested were also some heads of services who did not receive any notification and where layoffs are not made".

We remind you that the general manager of the Romanian Post stated, at the beginning of this year, that the restructuring process at the company targets almost 1,000 people, but all those laid off from their positions will have the option to remain in the company in other positions.

"In the restructuring process that we are carrying out now, the entire central administration enters. We are talking about approximately 1,000 people who will enter the restructuring process. Absolutely all of them will have the opportunity to stay in the company in other positions: the newly created ones in the central administration, but also in the operational one", said Valentin Ştefan, who stated that as long as he manages the Romanian Post National Company, the current system of evaluation and modification of the organizational structure, because it is normal that where things do not work, changes are made, and it is unfair for working people to pay wages to those who fail to produce.

We mention that ten days ago, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced that he was sending the Control Body to the Romanian Post Office to verify several negative aspects reported by the union leaders. The statement of the head of the Government came after Valentin Ştefan, the general director of the Romanian Post, attacked in the court of administrative litigation one of the two orders of the Minister of Digitization, Research and Innovation, by which he ordered an audit of the respective company.

Regarding the checks carried out by the Control Body of Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, Valentin Ştefan told us: "The control activity was also carried out based on the notifications made by the union leaders. We have presented all the requested documents, made them available to the members of the Prime Minister's Control Body, and we do not think there will be any problems. They will find out, as well as Mr. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, that at Poşta Română we do not do illegal things and we do not practice faulty management, as the union leaders accuse us".

I asked the general director of the Romanian Post what he thinks about the accusation made by the union leaders regarding the cancellation of an investment in a new sorting center in Otopeni, the land in question to be used by a postal company from Ukraine , where the president would be a foreign citizen, member of the Romanian Post Board of Directors.

"These unfounded statements highlight the free time that trade unionists have, free time in which they create all kinds of scenarios or conspiracies. It is very difficult for me to understand where these scenarios come from, it is difficult for me to understand what is happening with the union leaders, but I can tell you that Poşta Română has had a logistics center in Giulesti for over 70 years. We are trying to optimize the activity of this center, by modernizing it and by moving inside it the administrative teams from Bucharest, Ilfov and from the company's headquarters. I think it is good to modernize this logistics center, especially since it is in the immediate vicinity of the railway, unlike the land in Otopeni which was on the Belt, somewhere towards Tunari. Building that center from scratch in Otopeni costs a lot and would have burdened the Romanian Post's budget, given that we only own 5% of the courier market in our country. That's why I consider it at least illogical to invest in the construction of that center, as long as most of the activity is carried out manually, and we chose to modernize the center in Giuleşti", said Valentin Ştefan, general manager of the Romanian Post.

As can be seen, the problems continue at Poşta Română. Time and, perhaps, the report of the Prime Minister's Control Body will tell us whether these problems were generated by the resistance of some union leaders to the reorganization and modernization decided by the management of the company, or whether there is a grain of truth in the claims of the employee representatives.