Newspaper carriers strike again
A good 50 newspaper carriers from the Zuvo delivery organization went on strike in St. Gallen on Friday morning. According to the unions, around 5,000 to 6,000 readers therefore had no newspaper in their letterboxes. The newspaper carriers are protesting against wage cuts.
In March of this year, Zuvo announced wage cuts of up to 20 percent. The Comedia and Kommunikation unions are fighting back. They have now called for a newspaper carrier strike in St. Gallen. Back in August, 60 Zuvo employees went on strike in Zurich.
Strike action: around 5000 subscribers in the Zurich area without a newspaper
Zuvo: Unions announce further strikes
In St. Gallen, the strikers met at the Kultur am Gleis cultural center near the old freight station in the city. The 50 or so Zuvo employees gathered there from 4.30 am to 7 am. With the strikes, the newspaper carriers want to bring about serious negotiations between the Zuvo management and the unions. As Comedia employee Hans-Peter Graf told the SDA news agency on Friday, there are currently no signs of this happening. Graf therefore does not rule out further strikes.
The company regrets that around two percent of employees did not accept an agreement reached with the elected employee representatives and went on strike illegally, Zuvo writes in a statement. At the end of August, the elected employee representatives responsible for the negotiations concluded an agreement with Zuvo. Zuvo is voluntarily providing CHF 450,000 for a fund that will be distributed as a one-off compensation payment to employees with more than five years of service. Against the background of this agreement, the strike is to be classified as disproportionate, the press release continues. Zuvo therefore reserves the right to take legal action against the unions.
In view of the far above-average delivery costs compared to the other delivery organizations in German-speaking Switzerland, Zuvo is adjusting the wages of the carriers to a market level. In future, the wage level should therefore be on a par with other delivery organizations operated by publishing houses and Swiss Post in German-speaking Switzerland. On average, the measures will lead to a wage adjustment of 9.3 percent. The measure is part of a larger cost-cutting package that also includes various optimizations in Zuvo's administration.
