Government minister Sirpa Paatero on Tuesday lashed out at the lavish salaries and bonuses paid to the top management of national mail carrier Posti, which is wholly owned by the Finish state. Last week it became known that Posti's chief executive was pulling down an annual salary close to a million euros while postal workers earning around 2,000 euros per month were facing 30-50 percent pay cuts this autumn in the name of competitiveness.
Minister of Local Government and Ownership Steering Paatero told a press conference on Tuesday that the government would review the remuneration of top management at Posti.
She added that the state may decide to take out smaller dividends paid to it by Posti. As a state-owned company, Posti pays dividends to its sole shareholder, the state.
She said salaries paid to executives had been excessive and that further negotiations between the postal workers' union (PAU) and employer representatives would take place this autumn regarding any changes to postal workers' collective agreement.
CEO waives part pay after public outrage
Last week news emerged that in four years, Posti chief executive Heikki Malinen’s annual salary including bonuses had risen by 65 percent to 990,000 euros. That amounts to a monthly pay packet of about 82,500 euros. Following public outrage, Malinen said he was willing to waive two months' pay this year. Meanwhile management was planning to cut postal workers' salaries by shifting them to a new pay structure.
The postal workers' union PAU said the new pay structure would effectively gouge some 700 employees’ pay by an average of 30 percent, and in some cases up to 50 percent by November. The average monthly salary of a postal worker is 2,200 euros. A 30-percent salary reduction would mean losing 660 euros every month. Workers walked off the job on Friday as the union announced a strike to protest the pay reforms.
While Paatero did not want to specify how much executive pay would be cut, she said the change would be "significant."
She has previously pointed out that Posti is increasingly competing with multinational delivery companies not bound by the same collective agreement, allowing competitors to pay workers less.
The postal workers' industrial action ends at midnight on Wednesday.