Human Resources Management within CFR –SA

Changes within the Collective Contract

    The debates during the collective bargaining between the administration’s representatives and the trade union – National Trade Union “the Iron Route”
    Trade Union MC within the Transport Railway and National Trade Union of Telecommunications TELCOM Romania- ended the 28.04.2000 after a month of negotiations, by a mutual signing of an additional act to the Collective Contract of the CFR-SA for 1999/2000. Thus the collective contract has been prolonged for another 12 months. This contract listed no. 6.991/2000 at the General Department of Working and Social Services of Bucharest has some advantages such as:

1. 25% wage raise for each payment category in the annexe 1 of WCC/ 1999/2000; on the 1.09.2000, depending on the economic and financial possibilities of the company, salaries amount will increase to 15%
2. New possibilities of employing or promoting the personnel, depending on the strict approving competence, according to the article 29 of WCC/1999/2000.
3. New possibilities of increasing the employees income – by the modification of the 32 article of WCC/1999/2000 regarding the festive hours.
4. Increasing the number of representatives of the union trade organisations, from three to four persons who will attend Administrative Council Meetings of the company- by the modification of the 99 article of WCC/1999/2000.
5. Reducing from 1 / 4.000 to 1 / 3.000 the number of the trade union leaders regarding the chosen representatives of the trade union to develop activities for the employees benefit – modification of the 101(1) article of WCC/ 1999/ 2000.
6. A simple way of paying the unqualified workers – because of the renunciation to the “habitual working” category of the chapter A1 of Annexe 2 of WCC/1999/2000.
7. Adding new job qualifications to the Annexe 2 of WCC, initially approved during the Administration Council Seances of the CFR-SA; these are:

• branch under-engineer
• head-master I and II
• assistant, junior assistant, senior assistant
• junior market analyst, junior image promoting analyst;
• market analyst, negotiator, image promoter;
• senior market analyst, senior negotiator, senior image programmer analyst;
• technical co-ordinator, financial co-ordinator;

    These new jobs qualifications led to the modification of the annexes 5 and 10 of the WCC/1999/2000, including the danger money for these jobs as well as the paid holiday.

Interview with Mr. Gavrila Vaduva, manager of the Human Resources Department within the CFR-SA

RJ: Collective bargaining led to an additional act to the WCC/1999/2000. Tell me the importance of this act.
GV: This additional act that consists of all the annotations to some articles of the present collective contract represents a 12 month prolongation creating also a series of advantages for our employees.
RJ: Do you think that the supplementation of job positions in the Annexe no.2 represents an advantage?
GV: The Administration Council has approved these job positions and I must say that they have an important role in the development and co-ordination of our activity having as goal the safe railway traffic. They remain available until the present Collecting Contract end and we will discuss the next collective bargaining for the 2000/2001.
RJ: The main advantage is represented by the 25% wage raise for each payment category and also by the 15% increase on the 1.09.2000. Is this 15% the first step from those 25%?
GV: No, 25% represents the salaries increasing until the end of the year; depending on the financial possibilities of the company we try a raise of 15% and if the necessary founds allows us we will be able to do that on the 1.09.2000.
RJ: Such income increasing is possible even by the modification of the 32 article, regarding the payment of the festive hours. Could you explain it for us?
GV: Until having this additional act signed, the hours of work within the national holidays were paid in normal working time. By the changes at the 32 article, working Saturday, Sunday or during the National Holidays is paid 100% off.
RJ: Last year the company began a campaign of personnel promoting, covering all the activity fields. How do you create these specialists and what will happen to the employees replaces by the new specialists?
GV: Presently, we use several methods of training our personnel. The superior personnel-the 1^st category consists of the college graduates. Until now, we have employed over 400 college graduates, but it gets harder and harder to keep them because we cannot offer them a good salary close to that offered by the private companies. The medium educated- personnel represent the second category: railway agent, rail supervisor, and rail worker for which we have organised qualification classes. The high school graduates belong also to this personnel category; for them the qualification classes are paid and at the end we sign together a five-year contract. RJ: Why do you think these changes in the old collective contract are advantageous?
GV: This act in addition to the collective contract consists of ad-notations regarding the collective contract, the working and payment conditions, the working and holiday time as well as the rights and obligations of the personnel in order to have a good and equitable working relation between the employees and the management insuring the employees’ social protection and the union rights as well. These are just a few of the advantages brought to the old collective contract.

Rail personnel administration

    Along with the creation of the CFR-SA on 1 October 1998, they have established some specific indices to correspond to the needs of efficacy in the railway activity. They have taken measures to compete with the other railway administrations in the world.
    Thus, we foresaw the rail tracks length, the number of rail stations, the park of necessary material and its performances, and also a certain dimensioning of the number employees reported to the activity volume. Since we build the company and until the end of 1999 an implementing process of the personnel structure has been developing; we have created all necessary conditions for reaching our goal – that of insuring and mentioning a high –qualified personnel, motivated and able, productive and satisfactory to the market demands.
    Our activity contract approved by HG no. 698/1999, where all Performance Parameters of the railway infrastructure are enlisted, indicates the evolution of the number of personnel and of the working productivity, as follows:

OBJECTIVE	U/M	1999	2000	2001	2002
Total personnel	employees	47.309	47.000	46.750	46.500
Productivity	Lei/employee	98.492	98.750	99.000	99.100

    The new policy within the management of the human resources, such as: the small number of specialists in poor activity fields, the few recruiting of college graduates, the retiring possibility according to the subordination to the I and II working category groups, made possible to edge within the number of personnel established for 1999 by the collective contract, even if the number of personnel was reduced to 119. Considering the fact that during 2000, working productivity has to increase to 2,6% , of which 0,6% due to the cut-off of the personnel number, it is absolutely necessary to create new conditions for a maximum and efficient personnel exploitation.
    A permanent surveying of the evolution of the personnel number and structure will lead to a re-orientation from the job positions already becoming obsolete toward those requiring a long training process. A strict supervision of the retiring perspective has to become leads also to a better and pertinent personnel policy, such as:

à making previsions regarding the numeric, qualitative, specialisation and qualification personnel necessary taking into account the modifications according to the transport market, to the competitive market, etc.

à personnel recruitment and distribution

à personnel promoting

à professional training

à personnel training and specialisation methods

    To obtain good results due to the correlation between the personnel number to the activity level, it is absolutely necessary for the employees to be judiciously exploited.
    Professional training activity within Human Resources Department has as a main objective insuring the qualified personnel, personnel re-qualification, and a new methodology of professional training.
    They also adopt new strategies as scholarships, school taxes, and university collaboration for the benefit of the both parties, to better concentrate the working class toward the fields affected by the personnel deficit. Personnel professional training (qualification classes, improving programme strategies) is also another modality of encouraging the young employees to remain and build together a strong company as CFR-SA. To point out what has bee said before, it is remarkable that 30 students are the beneficiaries of some contractual scholarships who after graduating they will work at the company.
    To support the effort of some employees that at the moment are student within the private universities, specialising in rare domains, the company insures on contract basis, the school tax value for 12 persons who, according to their training, will be hired at the company.
    At the universities of Bucharest, Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca there have been organised student meetings in order to mediate the opportunities CFR-SA has to offer, both during school time and after they become the next employees generation of the company. Meetings with the universities’ leaders had as goal the harmonisation of the learning process with the real activity work of the infrastructure exploitation and maintenance.
    In order to maintain the professional tonus of their employees to an adequate level required by the present exigencies, company management include in the professional training process an important number of employees.
    The new-hired personnel with higher education (over 400) were integrated in the working process based on strategic programmes due to complete their knowledge. The management also attended to specialising managerial courses both here and abroad. Including a number of 30.000 employees in continuous training programmes so called “ personnel school” is meant to insure once again the traffic safety on our railway routes.
    Blending together the professional training process with the continuously changing training needs results from a permanent elaboration and review of specific rules. Thus, during last year, new amendments were made regarding the organisation way of education of the “personnel school”, the strategic professional training, and the qualification classes.
    To conclude with, one can say that the CFR-SA develops a coherent policy, based on the real necessity of the transport activity within the market economy imposed conditions.

Oana Bran