Employees of the French post office (La Poste) have been urged to stop work on January 27 in protest against what the French postal unions Sud-PTT and CGT-PTT call the merchandisation of public services. On the job front, moreover, the unions claim that La Poste is no longer recruiting civil-servant status employees. January 27 is the day on which the French senate is due to debate the bill on the regulation of postal services.
Read MoreThe Group La Poste has achieved an increase of 5.6% for its turnover during the first six months of 2004, compared with last year’s figures. The operational profit (EBIT) has increased to € 64.166 million whilst a net profit of € 88.849 million has been achieved against a net profit of € 29.737 million after 6 months in 2003. These results are very encouraging, and show the fruits of the work of the whole La Poste Groupe to enhance sales, increase customer satisfaction through an efficient quality of service and price reduction. These efforts need to be continues to allow La Poste to attain a balanced budget at the end of the year.
(translated from French)
French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has indicated to Jean-Paul Bailly, chairman of national postal services group La Poste, that a bill for postal services regulation will be submitted to the French parliament in the autumn. In a letter to Mr. Bailly, the prime minister requested that the group keep a close eye on its presence and on the quality of its service, particularly in rural areas. He also stressed the importance of maintaining a dense postal services network.
Read MoreJean-Paul Bailly, chairman of La Poste, yesterday met Jean-Pierre Raffarin, French prime minister, to seek political backing for the restructuring of France’s state-owned post office as trades unions stepped up warnings about heavy job losses and branch closures. Mr Bailly, appointed two years ago to prepare the public company for liberalisation of Europe’s postal sector by 2009, used yesterday’s meeting to seek assurances that his modernisation drive will secure government backing. Mr Raffarin said after the meeting: “The French are very attached to their public postal service. That is why La Poste must, in an increasingly competitive environment, successfully evolve to improve its performance and guarantee a quality public service.”
Read MoreLa Poste chairman Jean-Paul Bailly said the French state-owned company plans to keep its 17,000 outlets for postal services.
Asked in an interview with French daily Le Figaro if La Poste will get rid of 6,000 post offices as part of restructuring plans to modernise the service and cut 10,000 jobs as unions expect, Bailly said: ‘I’ve read the figures … I refute them categorically.’
‘There are 17,000 postal outlets in France, there will be 17,000 tomorrow,’ he added.
Unions last week said La Poste plans to extend restructuring tested in the Loire-Atlantique region to other areas in France from January 2005.
But he admitted La Poste needs to upgrade it service.
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