News

The President and Executive of the Panama Postal Workers Union, FETRACELAP, met with UNI Head of Post & Logistics Neil Anderson, UNI Americas Regional Secretary Rodolfo Benitez and UNI Americas Post & Logistics Director, Cenise Monteiro, to discuss the issues facing this newly elected Executive of the union. In recent union elections a whole new team to run the union was put in place and they have been seeking UNI Americas help with the issues currently facing them in Panama. The most pressing issue is a new Bill that has been brought into the Panama parliament that looks to change the postal regulations, to set up a new postal regulator and to make the market more open. Neil Anderson told the union this is an issue for Post & Logistics unions globally and UNI Post & Logistics was working with affiliates to help them lobby their local parliaments and law makers to put proper regulation in place, with independent regulators who took into account social issues and were obligated to talk to unions and workers about how the regulations would affect their jobs. The union President, Ismael Ruiz, said the bill would precipitate the modernisation of Panama Postal services and the union feared this would mean job losses and staff reductions which the union members say will not help improve the quality of service improvements that are needed to ensure Panama Post is a viable and competitive business.