BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The Verdi trade union is holding a vote starting this Monday on whether there should be an indefinite strike in the wage dispute at Deutsche Post. Until March 8, Verdi members employed at the Post can decide on this. If more than 75 percent of those polled reject Deutsche Post's collective bargaining offer, indefinite industrial action is to be initiated. Consumers would then probably have to prepare for considerable delays in receiving letters and parcels.

Verdi is demanding a one-year contract with 15 percent more money. The Group considers this to be economically unfeasible and is offering a two-year collective agreement with various financial components. According to the Post, the entry-level pay of a parcel sorter, for example, would increase by 20.3 percent during this period and that of a delivery worker by 18 percent. In addition, the tax-free inflation compensation bonus of a total of 3,000 euros is to flow.

From Verdi's point of view, this offer is not enough. Almost 90 percent of employees are classified in pay groups one to three. The monthly basic salary amounts to here between 2108 and 3090 euro gross. "These pay scale employees are particularly affected by high inflation, as they have to pay a large share of their net income for food and energy," the union stressed on Sunday. It said the last tariff increase in January 2022 was two percent.

The group has drawn up contingency plans to minimize disruptions for customers. "However, if there are indeed nationwide, indefinite strikes, we will not be able to completely prevent delays," the head of operations at the mail and parcel division, Thomas Schneider, told Bild am Sonntag. He reacted to the strike ballot with incomprehension: "We presented the best collective bargaining offer in the history of our company."

In principle, the Post is also considering outsourcing more of its tasks. "As the Post for Germany, we have built up an operating model over many decades that operates exclusively with our own forces," Chief Human Resources Officer Thomas Ogilvie told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers. "If Verdi now calls all this into question against the backdrop of short-term maximum wage increases, we will have to rethink our operating model."

This would then also have an impact on jobs. The question would be whether sites could continue to be operated by the company itself or whether they would be outsourced. In the parcel sector, he said, Swiss Post has 98 percent of its own value creation in delivery. "Operations and sorting centers are in-house. We have letter delivery completely in-house," Ogilvie said. So far, he said, outsourcing mail delivery has been contractually excluded until the end of June.

The union called the statements "ineffectual intimidation" of employees. "Stoking fears in this way is another attempt to negatively influence employees in the ballot," Verdi deputy chairwoman Andrea Kocsis said Sunday, according to the statement. "The intention behind the threatened outsourcing is clear: good collectively agreed pay is to be circumvented by outsourcing."

Last week, collective bargaining for about 160,000 Deutsche Post employees such as parcel carriers or letter carriers had failed. According to Verdi, over 100,000 of them are members of the union. In recent weeks, there had already been warning strikes - the name given to work stoppages that take place before a ballot and are limited in time. These industrial action measures had delayed the dispatch of millions of letters and parcels./hgo/wdw/bg/DP/ngu