OREANDA-NEWS. October 7, 2008. Petersburg to sign the Labor Contract for 2009-2011. The Contract is the basic legal document regulating the social and labor relations in the company. The Conference was attended by 70 delegates and over 40 invited persons, among whom were the Company’s top managers and N.W.Telecom regional subsidiary managers.

V. A. Akulich, General Manager of North-West Telecom, was the first speaker. He greeted the Conference and indicated the essential features of the new document, noting that the N.W.Telecom Labor Contract for 2006-2008 did its job in full. It was adopted for a three-year period, therefore it guaranteed social stability within the Company in the days when the communication industry and N.W.Telecom were going through serious changes. During its effective period, the Company completed a structural reorganization and personnel number optimization, with the average wages increased by 44%. “The time has come for a new regulatory document, which would eliminate the differences in social benefits and guarantees granted to employees of different subsidiaries,” Mr. Akulich emphasized. Still, all such differences, including those related to non-governmental pension schemes, will be eliminated in six years.

Tatiana Alexandrovna Shuiskaya, Chairperson of the Territorial Organization of the Trade Union, told the audience about the features of the new Labor Contract, which was a result of painstaking work by the Standing Committee, and about the development of local documents and trade union activity in the regions.

The labor contract for 2009-2011 intended to ensure the employees’ social and labor guarantees, stability and efficient operation of the Company, higher mutual responsibility of the parties, and compliance with the applicable laws and the social/economic interests agreed between the parties, will become effective on January 1 of the next year.