The collective agreement covering 747 Maltapost employees was finally signed yesterday after nine months of difficult talks between the company and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin.
Sixty-five per cent of the company's employees voted by a secret ballot in favour of the agreement, backdated to May 1, 2001, which expires on December 31, 2004.
Through this agreement there will be no redundancies or demotions, the union said.
Presiding over the signing, Investment Minister Austin Gatt announced that Cabinet was concluding discussions on how to devise a central bargaining unit to expedite negotiations on collective agreements before they expired.
"This would be a new method where from day one all the parties involved start negotiating together rather than holding separate talks between management, Mimcol and eventually the finance minister," Dr Gatt said.
The government was now in the process of drawing up a list of entities, boards and committees, among others, so as to be in a position to launch the idea with social partners in the coming weeks.
"We believe it's a priority to have industrial relations whereby all the parties concerned respect and understand the needs of both the employees and the company and pull the same rope," he said.
Dr Gatt said this new method of negotiating had been used as an experiment in the talks on Maltapost and it had proved to be a success.
Maltapost's collective agreement was hailed as a success by the company's management, the union and Dr Gatt.
Company chief executive Rob Lake said Maltapost, like all global postal systems, was facing a number of challenges and a number of changes had to take place.
Mr Lake said the agreement had led to an increase in the size of the postman's beat with better allowances, a new postal processing system and the introduction of a code of behaviour to preserve the company's good name.
Maltapost chairman Frank Dimech said the company's restructuring will allow future viability and job security for employees.
"We can now focus on new products for our clients and remove dependency from the core business," Mr Dimech said.
Joe Morana, union section secretary for manufacturing services and allied workers, said one of the issues of contention had been the idea of a permanent night shift. This was now a late evening shift on a voluntary basis.
UHM, which acquired sole recognition of Maltapost employees last October, had been in a long-standing dispute after the company announced it had a surplus of 266 workers who would hinder its restructuring plan.
Earlier this year the government attempted to defuse the situation and committed itself to resume the responsibility for 160 ex-government employees.
Dr Gatt said yesterday that in the coming days a letter will be sent to about 305 ex-government employees asking them to declare whether they wished to return to government employment or not.
While the government had offered to take on 160 ex-government employees, 305 are eligible to apply, Mr Morana said.
"This agreement has laid down the foundation for postal services in the coming years. Despite the stumbling blocks we faced we are happy that it has now been successfully finalised," he said.
UHM general secretary Gejtu Vella said all sides had reached a "win-win situation" and now it was time to look ahead and face the challenges.