Union communication

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The Communication Union , GEKO for short , was a union in Switzerland and one of syndicom's predecessor unions . The GEKO represented the employees working in Switzerland in the fields of post, logistics, telecommunications, IT and air traffic control. Its 37,000 members mostly worked for the former parts of the PTT, which are now called Swiss Post (postal service) and Swisscom (telecommunications). But other employees in the above-mentioned industries ( DPD , DHL , Orange , Sunrise , Setz Gütertransport , Skyguide etc.) were also represented. Most of the organized staff at Post and Swisscom were members.

Offices

The central secretariat of GEKO was in Bern. There were also nine regional secretariats. Another one in Härkingen , Canton Solothurn, was under construction. In total, around 65 people were recently employed at GEKO. The regional secretariats were:

  • Regional Secretariat Basel , 2 people
  • Regional Secretariat Bern , 6 people
  • Geneva Regional Secretariat , 3 people
  • Lausanne Regional Secretariat , 3 people
  • Regional Secretariat Ticino / Lugano , 2 people
  • Regional Secretariat Central Switzerland / Aargau , seat: Lucerne, 2 people
  • Regional Secretariat Neuchâtel / Jurabogen , 3 people
  • Regional Secretariat Eastern Switzerland , seat: Sankt Gallen, 2 people
  • Regional Secretariat Zurich , 3 people
  • Regional Secretariat Härkingen (under construction)

history

For historical reasons, with the division into senior and subordinate civil servants and post and telecommunications, the organized staff was divided into numerous individual unions. In order to be able to act more strongly towards the employer (e.g. in wage negotiations), the individual associations merged to form the PTT association . After the separation of PTT into Post and Swisscom and the approval of private providers in the post and telecommunications sectors, a change from the house association to the branch union was initiated. On January 1, 1999 , the Communication Union was founded. It consisted of the members of the former trade unions

  • PTT-Union (uniformed personnel delivery, processing, transport mail; telecommunications)
  • VSPB (Association of Swiss Post Officials; Post counter staff)
  • SPV (Swiss Post Holder Association; Head of Post Offices)
  • VSTTB (telecommunications staff )
  • Parts of the PVB (staff association of the federal administration)

All of these unions had been members of the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions for decades .

In 2006/07 talks were held with the SEV ( Swiss Railway and Transport Personnel Association ) for a merger , which failed mainly due to the resistance of the historically grown sub-associations, small-scale sections of the SEV and the speed of the planned implementation.

Then merger negotiations began with the unions VPOD and Comedia . The VPOD, which had acted as godmother to the predecessor organization of Comedia, left the negotiating table in March 2009 because they could not agree on the autonomy and financing of the regional structures.

The trade union Kommunikation and Comedia then continued the negotiations without a VPOD and were able to agree on the formation of a new union. On November 30, 2010 the delegates of GEKO finally approved the merger with 145 yes against four against with three abstentions and in December 2010 the founding congress of the new Syndicom union took place, which officially started operations in January 2011. According to the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions , the two unions entered into a marriage of convenience and convenience.

Structure of the GEKO

The highest organ were the members, who were last organized in 35 sections. The sections were represented by militiamen, who were supported by the professionals in the central and regional secretariats. In addition, there were national working groups (departmental representations; e.g. post bus service, express mail, etc.), national working conferences for the departments, the women's commission, the ergonomics commission and the pensioners' association.

Trade union bodies

congress

The congress, which takes place every three years, was the highest authority of the GEKO. The participants formed the representatives of the sections, national bodies (presidents of the national working groups), the women's commission, the retired people's association and the ergonomics commission. The congress chose the management and strategies for the future.

Assembly of delegates

An assembly of delegates was held every year. This found, for example, about the annual wage negotiations.

Presidents conference

This took place every quarter and was an organ that discussed current issues due to the frequency of the conference.

Management

The management was formed from full-time employees of GEKO. It last consisted of the following five people:

  • Alain Carrupt , Central President
  • Didier Page , Vice President (Communication, Education and Promotion
  • Fritz Gurtner , Vice President (Post / Logistics Divisions, from Zurich)
  • Giorgio Pardini , Vice President (Telecom / IT / Air Traffic Control); President Lucerne Trade Union Federation and Grand Council of the Canton of Lucerne)
  • Monika Uhlmann ( Central Services )

Commissions

There were currently three commissions in the Communication Union. Namely

  • the women's commission (President Edith Beutler )
  • the youth commission
  • the retiree association
  • the ergonomics commission (President Otto Dietiker ; occupational health and safety)

Sections

The sections were part of the GEKO. Every member of the communication union was also a member of a section (the workplace was decisive for the allocation). They developed their own activities (general assembly, spring / autumn assemblies, retirees' meetings, leisure events, etc.) for their section members.

Umbrella organizations

The Communication Union was a member of

  • SGB (Swiss Federation of Trade Unions) and
  • of UNI (Union Network International)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ VPOD magazine, December 2010: "Adventure Comedia" - journalistic balance sheet ( Memento from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) ( Memento in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Ewald Ackermann: Union of communication and comedia merge. Swiss Federation of Trade Unions , December 2, 2010, accessed on September 1, 2017 .

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