French postal workers angry about modernisation plans
With increasing use of the Internet and the SMS, the French are writing less and less. The French postal oprator, La Poste, recorded a fall of 1 pct in mail volume in 2007. However, French unions have reacted angrily to plans by La Poste to introduce bigger sorting centres to replace smaller ones which could see hundreds of redundancies.
Raymond Redding, Director General of La Poste emphasised the need to modernise saying: “We are investing some 81 million euros in new mail equipment in Brittany to ensure the business remains profitable.”
New modernised sorting operations are to be set up in Brittany, as well as at Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande, close to Rennes, and on the industrial park of Kergaradec, in Guipavas, close to Brest.
Postal operations in Brittany are carried out by some 7.550 post-office employees but trade unions are concerned that some 450 sorters would be made redundant by the changes, primarily in the old sorting offices of Saint-Brieuc, Vannes and Quimper, which unions say will just become ‘transit points’.
In an official statement, the French postal union said “There is inconsistency in the drawing up of these plans and this is effectively a downsizing of a public service with the removal of these sorting offices.” Union members are deciding what their next course of action should be.
