Tag: Europe

Irish postal network faces collapse

Posted by | May 12, 2007 | |

Rural leaders were warned yesterday that the post office network could collapse if there is a further fall in the volume of social welfare payments they transact.

Pat McCann of the Irish Postmasters Union told the Irish Rural Link conference in Cavan that social welfare transactions represent the single biggest customer for these post offices.

But, he said, the Department of Social and Family Affairs is pursuing an agenda that will see more and more social welfare recipients having to access their payments at a bank rather than at the post office.

“The prospect for many offices is not good but it is salvageable if the public use its influence with those in power and encourage their local communities to use the post office regularly,” he said.

Mr McCann, a postmaster at Fairymount in Co Roscommon, said there is a mistaken belief that the postmaster or postmistress is a paid official of An Post.

The reality is that they get paid solely on the basis of every transaction conducted in the post office. The less customers, the less income they have. Yet, all the overheads remain the same.

According to the Irish Postmasters Union the earnings of some of its members are as low as euro 8,000 per year, with an average yearly income of €16,000, working an average 50-hour week.

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Dell drops UPS and will use rivals

Posted by | May 12, 2007 | |

Dell has stopped relying on UPS, the world’s biggest package deliverer, to handle its box deliveries in the United States.

Instead, Dell is turning to UPS shipping rivals DHL and FedEx. The move cuts into Sandy Springs-based UPS’ dealings with one of its biggest customers. But it is a boost for DHL’s efforts to grow its presence in the U.S.

UPS spokesman Norman Black said Dell and UPS “were simply unable to reach an agreement for pricing for renewal of this particular contract.”

None of the companies involved would disclose the dollar value of the deals. Dell shipped 20.5 million personal computers for the U.S. market last year, according to IDC, which tracks data about the technology industry. That represented just over half Dell’s worldwide shipment of PCs.

But Dell’s market share has been slipping, and it has been looking for ways to streamline its operations and shave costs for everything from manufacturing to logistics.

UPS had been the carrier for virtually all of Dell’s U.S. package deliveries, Black said. While that ended effective April 1, UPS remains Dell’s primary package deliverer outside the U.S. and will continue to handle logistics issues for the computer maker, he said.

He declined to say where Dell had ranked among UPS’ largest clients. He said the reduction in business between the companies is not a material event from a regulatory financial accounting standpoint.

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Royal Mail heading for first national strike in a decade

Posted by | May 12, 2007 | |

Britain is heading for its first national postal strike in more than a decade after pay talks broke down between Royal Mail and its unions.
The Communications Workers Union announced yesterday that a ballot for industrial action would go ahead after it formally rejected a 2.5 per cent pay offer from Royal Mail linked to further efficiency gains. The union fears that Royal Mail is planning up to 40,000 job losses.
The CWU will serve notice of its intention to ballot its 130,000 members in Royal Mail on Tuesday and despatch ballot papers a week later. The result is due to be announced on 7 June. The last national postal strike was in 1996.
Royal Mail executives said the union’s pay claim was “clearly madness and not in our view justified in any way”. The company said that the claim for a 27 per cent increase coupled with a reduction in the working week would cost it GBP 1bn a year at a time when its profits had shrunk to just GBP 22m for the first six months and the UK mail market was declining by 2.3 per cent a year.
Royal Mail also claimed that its staff were paid 35 per cent more than those working for rival postal companies, if pension benefits were taken into account, while productivity within the state-owned organisation was 40 per cent lower than that of its competitors.
The company said it did not believe the pay claim would be supported by customers or taxpayers. “The union must also realise that the consequences of meeting its demands would be hugely negative for Royal Mail’s competitiveness and would result in further large job losses as well as the loss of vital contracts and revenue.”

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Deutsche Post performance criticised

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

Major institutional investors are accusing German national postal services provider Deutsche Post of poor operating results, poor profit growth and a lack of clarity. Klaus Kaldemorgen, head of German investment fund DWS Investment, which holds a 1.8 per cent stake in the company, fears that Deutsche Post could face being broken up if it does not improve profitability quickly, as the individual divisions of the company could be worth more than the company as a whole.

Mr Kaldemorgen has said that the forecast of only a 3 per cent increase for 2007 indicates the slowness of Deutsche Post’s restructuring and integration of different areas and regions, and doubts that the company will attain its mid-term target of 5.2bn euros in 2009. Michael Gierse, head of German investment fund Union Management, which holds a 1.6 per cent stake in Deutsche Post, has criticised the company for its profit growth not being in line with turnover growth, and for operating margins not only having dropped considerably in 2006 but for falling below the margins attained in 2004 and 2003. This is being attributed to problems in German parcel business and US business, the figures of which are no longer released. Mr Gierse has also queried the annual 500m euros registered for legal, consultancy and auditing fees; a representative for Deutsche Post has said that these figures arise from major takeovers in the past.

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