5,000 new postal workers needed

LA POSTE is to hire another 5,000 staff to "lighten the load for workers" after two employees committed suicide earlier this year.

Two days after the publication of a report into its working conditions it said that over the next two years it will hire 15,000 staff instead of the expected 10,000.

The report, by former CFDT union general secretary Jean Kaspar, came after two postal staff in Brittany had committed suicide in February and March blaming heavy pressure at work. It said that La Poste needed to hire more than 4,500 extra staff to ease work overload.

La Poste, which employs 240,000 staff, said the jobs would be on contrat à durée indéterminée (CDI). It will take on 1,000 young workers this year and 2,000 in each of the following years.

However, the news has not pleased union leaders with the Sud PT saying that natural wastage costs up to 13,000 job losses a year. And Jacques Dumans or Force Ouvrière said sourly: "If you are sentenced to 30 lashes a day and they only give you five, it's better!"