Tag: Europe

Post workers’ union claims 95% support for walkout

Posted by | Jun 30, 2007 | |

Union leaders have clashed with the Royal Mail about the scale of support for the first national postal strike in more than a decade, which has crippled deliveries across the country.

The Royal Mail said backing for the walkout was “patchy”, claiming that up to 60 per cent of its staff were working nationally and up to 22 per cent in London. But the Communication Workers Union said 95 per cent of its members joined the stoppage, making it the best ever supported strike.

“The Royal Mail’s figures are as ridiculous as their pay offer,” said Bill Hayes, the union’s general secretary, yesterday. “The Royal Mail has been in denial about its workforce rejecting a 2.5 per cent pay offer and is now in denial about the overwhelming support for the strike,” he added.

Picket lines were mounted outside mail centres and sorting offices across the country from 3am. Workers at Crown post offices were also on strike until midday in a separate row over plans to transfer postal services into WH Smith stores.

The CWU warned of a fresh round of industrial action at the Royal Mail unless the deadlocked dispute over pay and modernisation is resolved, but it hopes to restart peace talks.

Managers delivered special delivery items and collected mail from post offices. A Royal Mail spokesman said: “The strike is simply ignoring the reality facing everyone in Royal Mail – that we are no longer a monopoly.” He added: “The dispute is about the whole future of Royal Mail and the absolutely urgent need to modernise, as our rivals have already done.”

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Foreign courier services to be allowed to compete in Vietnam

Posted by | Jun 29, 2007 | |

Foreign companies will be eligible to provide forwarding services in the domestic market by 2012 if the Government approves a draft decree by the Ministry of Post and Telematics (MPT).

Under the draft, businesses allowed to join the domestic market will be wholly-owned foreign companies, branches of foreign companies and joint venture companies where foreign partners hold more than 51 percent of the total registered capital.

According to the MPT, the decree was drafted to meet the country’s pledges following Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The draft decree also outlines conditions surrounding an express service, which specialises in forwarding letters and documents that weight under two kilograms. According to the draft decree, the State will subsidise this service to ensure the post industry is able to develop sustainably.

MPT’s official said the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) will be selected to provide the special express service, however, forwarding fees will be regulated by the Government. Other businesses will be allowed to take part in the service, however, their charges must be ten times higher than VNPT’s.

The Government will provide exact details of the State’s subsidy of the special express service.

The first forwarding joint venture to be set up since Vietnam joined the WTO as DHL – VNPT, which has a total registered capital of 5.8 million USD.

Besides joining with VNPT, and participating in Vietnam’s forwarding market, DHL said it will also invest in five another projects in the field with a total capital of 6.5 million USD. – VNA

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Agreement in principle between TNT and unions on collective agreement on employment mobility

Posted by | Jun 29, 2007 | |

TNT and the unions (ABVAKABO FNV, CNV Publieke Zaak, BVPP and VPP) today reached agreement in principle on a new collective agreement on employment mobility. This new employment mobility agreement will make it possible to deal with the consequences of the impending reorganisations in a socially responsible manner.

The collective agreement on mobility applies to some 60,000 TNT employees in the Netherlands and runs until 1 January 2011. The unions intend presenting the agreement to their members with a recommendation that they approve it.

The collective agreement on mobility comprises measures to minimise the need for redundancies. The measures focus, for example, on encouraging mobility from one job to another and providing full assistance to employees looking for a job outside the TNT organisation. TNT’s Mobility department will play a major role in all this.

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Statement – Royal Mail – Strike Update

Posted by | Jun 29, 2007 | |

Royal Mail said today that despite a national postal strike called by the CWU just 26 Post Office branches were closed with the rest of the 14,200-strong network open and serving customers.

In Royal Mail’s letters operation support for the strike was patchy with between 1% and 22% of our people at work in some units in London while nationally the range was up to 60% of people working.

• The pay offer on the table comprises: a 2.5% increase in basic pensionable pay, PLUS an £800 cash dividend if performance targets are hit this year PLUS a 50-50 share in any savings at local operating unit over and above budget.
• Although basic pay for postmen and women is £323 a week, the average fulltime postman and woman earns £440 – above the national average – when pay supplements and overtime are taken into account.
• The union’s pay demand lodged on March 6 was for a 27% rise in basic pay and a cut in the working week, which in total would cost the company £1 billion – money which we simply don’t have.
• One of the Post Office branches closed today was the office in Rotherham, where flood damage – not strike action – had prevented the branch from opening. Strike action ended at 12noon today in Crown Post Office branches.

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Strike worth GBP 10m to Royal Mail rival

Posted by | Jun 29, 2007 | |

One of the private delivery firms competing with the Royal Mail predicted tonight that it already stood to make at least GBP 10m out of the postal service’s 24-hour strike which gets under way in the morning.

James Greenbury, the chief executive of DX, which is backed by private equity group Candover Partners, said the delivery group had attracted an “extraordinary” level of demand from new customers – more in the past week than for the whole of last year.

The comments highlighted the threat to the state-owned postal service from the low-cost and aggressive private delivery firms. Groups such as DX, Global Mail and Dutch-based TNT are coming into the market at a time when overall mail volumes are falling because of email and other electronic media.

Since private operators were given access to the UK postal market, Royal Mail says it has lost 40% of its business customers, including the Department for Work and Pensions, BT and last week online retailer Amazon.

One of the biggest gainers has been Dutch-based TNT, which claims to be distributing more than 1bn items of mail a year in Britain and made profits worldwide of GBP 240m last year. The company has been conducting trials of door-to-door deliveries in Glasgow and Manchester before it starts a full service in all major British cities. TNT, Global Mail, which is backed by Deutsche Post, and others have licenses to collect and sort mail but must hand it over to Royal Mail for the “final mile” delivery to the door.

DX offers next day home delivery for GBP 3.50 and is a direct competitor to Royal Mail’s own special delivery, which costs GBP 4.30. DX has built up an annual turnover of GBP 160m and had set a target to make an extra GBP 10m this year. It says it will easily achieve this because of the strike.

Only around 20,000 of the 150,000 Royal Mail staff are not members of the union. Postcomm, the industry regulator, declined to comment on the conflict.

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