News

The Panamanian union SIELAS, reports that with the help of ITF and UNI and the great effort by the SIELAS negotiating team, they have achieved success by completing the collective bargaining agreement between SIELAS and DHL AIR EXPRESS PANAMA SA. This is a great achievement as it is the first Collective Contract that has been achieved in the region with DHL. It has been a long road to success with the original organising of workers so there were sufficient numbers of union members to be able to file with the Panamanian Labour Ministry to start collective bargaining, and then the bargaining process itself, have lead to this success. This only happened because of the support by FNV Mondiaal. With their help UNI with the support of the ITF, has a project running in the region to organise DHL workers, to build relations with DHL and to gain collective contracts. Neil Anderson, Head of UNI Post & Logistics said; "We have met one of our main objectives of this project, to build dialogue with the company, to gain union members and to have a result with an agreed collective contract is a great achievement. Now UNI, ITF and SIELAS will work hard to get 100% union membership in this company so all workers in DHL AIR EXPRESS PANAMA SA can benefit from the great work done by the union."



SIELAS report that they are extremely pleased that their hard work has reached this point and it is a great achievement for workers in DHL. The new collective contract allows for a progressive percentage wage increases for four years in a company where workers had more than two years of not receiving an increase, other than salary adjustments when decreed by the Panama minimum wage commission. But also they say that it is necessary to analyse and evaluate the entire agreement, and that other conditions have been gained for workers, as important as the wage increases was a gain of life insurance terms which was successfully extended to spouses and two of the children of workers. Also a Christmas bonus was achieved up to 15 days paid in December and an attendance award of $170 dollars annually and a bonus at the signing of the collective agreement of $150 dollars to be paid on July 14, 2010.



The increase in wages which will come into effect from 1 July 2010 is as follows: For workers within the salary range from $ 0.00 to $ 999.00 6% annual increase for salaries from $ 999.01 to $ 1,999.00 4% annual increase and above $ 1,999.01 a 2% annual increase.