Tag: Domestic

Postwatch: Postal strike hurting customers – resolution needed urgently

Posted by | Aug 6, 2007 | |

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced further strikes, to take place in the period to 17th August. Postal customers – and the postal industry – have suffered from industrial action since 29th June.

Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, urges Royal Mail and the CWU to resolve the dispute and avert further disruption.

Post boxes and, for the most part, post offices are still open, but post is nonetheless being delayed. The longer industrial action continues, the worse problems will become. Customers who cannot use alternatives to mail are being inconvenienced.

Some businesses are moving to using other forms of communication, and more will do likewise if strikes persist. Mail volumes are already decreasing year-on-year: strikes will only worsen problems for the UK postal service.

Postwatch advises customers to be aware of the strikes, consider what postal disruption will mean to them, and then act to minimize inconvenience. That might mean using other communication methods.

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Italian government to revamp publishing sector subsidies

Posted by | Aug 5, 2007 | |

The Italian government has given the preliminary go-ahead to a revamp of subsidies for publishing companies, including hikes in value added tax and less postal benefits, said the Corriere della Sera, citing government officials.

The revamp follows an Italy antitrust authority fact-finding study which recently found subsidies of nearly 500 mln eur for the sectors. Analysts had said they didn’t expect changes to the aid.

In its Saturday edition, the newspaper said Friday’s ministerial meeting approved an increase in VAT to 20 pct for some add-on products sold with publications, from the current 4 pct rate.

The increased VAT will not be applied to add-on books, DVDs and CDs, the newspaper said. The antitrust authority said DVDs and cassettes normally pay 20 pct tax when sold separately.

Another government change is for publishers to pay the full postal tariff on publications sent by post, instead of a reduced rate, with this change being introduced in 2011, it said.

The antitrust authority said these benefits amounted to 299 mln eur in 2006, against 303 mln in 2005, including 174 mln for profit-making companies.

In 2005, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA received 18.9 mln eur, Il Sole 24 Ore SpA, which plans a bourse listing, 17.8 mln, RCS MediaGroup SpA 13.8 mln, and Editoriale L’Espresso SpA 4.7 mln.

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Austrian Post's board to be expanded to five directors

Posted by | Aug 4, 2007 | |

The managing board of Oesterreichische Post AG (Austrian Post) is likely to be expanded to five directors to allow responsibility for the company’s mail and package delivery divisions to be split between two board members, said the Austrian daily Die Presse.

The growing importance of Austrian Post’s packet delivery and marketing services makes it logical to establish this segment at the board level separately from the traditional mail segment, according to unnamed company sources cited by the paper.

The board of directors of the postal services company currently has four members, with one director responsible for both the mail and packet delivery segments.

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Post Office apology for ‘closure’ penalties

Posted by | Aug 4, 2007 | |

The Post Office on Friday apologized for threatening postmasters with the loss of thousands of pounds in compensation if they did not stick to an official script on closures.

The Conservatives accused Royal Mail bosses of using secret police tactics “to demand Maoist conformity to their line”, after the letter, from Sue Huggins, the Post Office’s director of the network change programme, was leaked to the press.

The letter, and an accompanying “lines to take” document, sent to all postmasters, set out official answers to questions customers might ask about 2,500 planned closures. It then went on to threaten recipients with financial penalties, including losing compensation packages, if they did not co-operate.

It warned that undercover staff would be sent around the country to check postmasters’ replies to questions.

On Friday, the Post Office apologized and insisted it would not be carrying out anonymous checks.

The Conservatives seized on the letter’s publication. Alan Duncan, shadow business and enterprise secretary, said: “It is shameful that the government, which is closing thousands of Post Offices, should blackmail hard-working subpostmasters into parroting the political spin of Gordon Brown to customers.”

George Thomson, general secretary of the National Federation of Sub-postmasters, said it accepted the letter had been “an error of judgement” by the Post Office.

Plans to close 2,500 post offices were announced by the government in May after Alistair Darling, then trade and industry secretary, said that the network could not be sustained with losses at GBP 4 m a week.

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