Dutch Coalition reaches postal law compromise
The Dutch centrist coalition has reached a compromise on minimum employment standards for postal workers, clearing the way for a new postal law to pass, a senior lawmaker said on Friday.
Dutch mail company TNT NV’s monopoly on letters up to 50 grams — around half of the 2 billion euro Dutch postal market — will end from the start of next year under the new postal law.
Politicians had all but wrapped up the discussion of the new postal law, Labor member of parliament Ferd Crone, the party’s spokesman on postal liberalisation, told Reuters.
“We’re almost done,” he said, adding one of the few points still under discussion was giving competitors limited access to TNT’s network.
Crone confirmed Dutch media reports that a compromise had been reached on the most contentious question between coalition partners Labor and the Christian Democrats.
Dutch daily Het Financieele Dagblad said the parties had agreed not to write minimum employment standards into the new postal law as the Labor party had demanded, but give the government the option to enforce them later.
The goal was to prompt TNT’s competitors, privately held Sandd and Deutsche Post’s Selekt Mail, to negotiate with trade unions and agree a collective labor contract by the autumn, the paper said.
Analysts have said a rule regarding minimum employment standards would probably mostly affect TNT’s competitors and could thus be positive for TNT.
The Labor party had argued that workers in the postal sector needed to be protected, as TNT’s rivals, as well as TNT unit Netwerk VSP, employ few permanent staff and pay carriers by the number of items delivered.
TNT’s mail business is one of the biggest Dutch employers, with about 59,000 people.
Crone confirmed comments by his Christian Democrat counterpart, Nicolien van Vroonhoven-Kok, to Reuters earlier this week that a compromise had been reached to regulate TNT’s stamp prices, but that the rule was unlikely to lead to significant price cuts.
The Dutch government was scheduled to discuss the postal law at a cabinet meeting still in progress on Friday afternoon.
