6 December 2012 at 08:30 CET – The Hague – After intense negotiations, PostNL and trade unions Abvakabo FNV, BVPP, CNV Publieke Zaak and VPP have reached an agreement in principle on the PostNL collective labour agreement (CLA) for Mail Netherlands until 1 April 2013. The result is a good balance of the wishes of both the labour organisations and the company. The parties will jointly start talks with the pension fund on a new pension arrangement. The current social plan is extended until 1 January 2014. The salary increase is 1.7% plus 0.4% linked to the actual implementation of the new pension scheme.
The main points of the agreement are:
Salary increase
- A salary increase of 1.1% as of 1 December 2012, followed by an increase of 0.6% as of 1 January 2013;
- A provisional salary increase of 0.4% with retroactive effect as from 1 January 2013 after a final agreement on the sustainable pension arrangement.
Sustainable pension arrangement
- Parties will submit a joint proposal to the pension fund for a sustainable pension arrangement acceptable to both employer and employees. The changes to the arrangement will have to result in a reduction in pension costs and reduce the risk of top- up payments. The implementation and feasibility will be tested by the pension fund in the coming months after which the unions will present the proposal to their members for approval.
- A pension contribution of 6% will be introduced for new employees as of 1 January 2013; current employees will pay a pension contribution of 2% as of 1 January 2013.
- PostNL will refrain from proportionally curtailing the transitional arrangements for employees that will start working part-time. The unions will refrain from further litigation. The transitional arrangements are aligned with the original intentions when the transitional arrangements were determined.
Extension of social plan
- Extension of the current social plan until 1 January 2014.
Profit sharing plan
- Parties have agreed on a profit sharing plan for 2011 and 2012. PostNL will pay an allowance of 2% for 2011.
Herna Verhagen, CEO of PostNL, comments: “We have found a good balance in the objectives we wanted to attain together with regards to the pensions, social plan and salary increase. This creates clarity for our employees.”
The unions will present this agreement to their members for approval.
In case of any discrepancies between the English and Dutch versions of this press release, the Dutch version prevails.
About PostNL
PostNL is the name of the inventive partner in the world of sending and receiving. We have been so for 200 years already. We are primarily active in the fields of mail, parcels and e-commerce, but we also offer services in the areas of data and document management, direct marketing and fulfilment. Outside the Netherlands, we are active in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Luxemburg. PostNL employs a total of approximately 65,500 people. In 2011 our revenues reached almost € 4.3 billion.
We process approximately 8.7 billion addressed postal items (including 106 million parcels) for our customers. We like to stay ahead of things. We are the most modern postal company in the world. We are proud of that. We are an example to the rest of the world in the automatic sorting of mail, we are the first listed postal company and we are the international champion in corporate responsibility, as leader in our sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2011.
