Tag: Mail Services

Communication Workers Union green lights more postal strikes (UK)

Posted by | Jun 19, 2008 | |

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has voted for another round of strikes at Royal Mail, dealing a blow to the direct marketing industry after last year’s strikes cost the sector GBP 8m.

The decision comes despite the CWU’s resolution after last year’s strikes to concentrate on lobbying the government rather than resorting to industrial action.

The vote was held at last week’s union conference, where Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward called for the dismissal of Adam Crozier and Allan Leighton.

The decision to return to strike action was in response to pension changes, post office closures and job losses at Royal Mail. Last year’s strike action was a major factor in Royal Mail’s failure to meet operational targets.

The strike also put a major strain on the CWU’s finances amid falling membership numbers. The union admitted at last week’s conference that it needs to make some ‘difficult and unpalatable decisions’, and would be looking to identify savings in its budget.

However, the union stressed that it is still in a strong enough position to protect its members’ rights. CWU senior Deputy General Secretary Tony Kearns says: “Let Royal Mail – or whoever else – be in no doubt that if they take us on we will do whatever is necessary to ensure we are in a position to fight on behalf of our members.”

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Deutsche Post to gradually give up own outlets

Posted by | Jun 19, 2008 | |

Deutsche Post World Net AG. plans to gradually give up running its own postal service outlets over the coming years to reduce costs, a spokesman for the company said, confirming an earlier report in German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt.

But the spokesman said that the branches will not be closed. Instead, they will be run as ‘partner branches’, which are commonly integrated into retail stores.

The company previously said it will retain about 100 of its 750 own branches.

There are some exceptions, though, the spokesman said, in places where there is no retail outlet or gas station that could house a postal service desk.

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EU executive may suspend Slovak mail law

Posted by | Jun 18, 2008 | |

Slovakia could be ordered to suspend a law that gives a postal operator a monopoly over some mail, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Before February, the Slovak postal system was open to competition and several private companies were active in the sector. But then the government amended the law, reserving the delivery of some mail to the incumbent postal operator.

The European Union executive started proceedings against Slovakia to verify whether the change to the law broke EU rules.

EU member states have agreed to open up their 88 billion euro postal markets to full competition from the start of 2011, with an extra two years for new member states.

The EU executive wants Slovakia to clarify the recent amendments to its postal law as they may infringe the bloc’s rules aimed at stopping a single company abusing its dominant position in the market.

In a rare move, the executive has given Slovakia two weeks to comment on a possible interim measure whereby Brussels would order the law to be suspended pending a probe into its legality.

The Commission said the amendments in question extend the monopoly on the delivery of so-called hybrid mail.

Big companies email the content of a letter, such as an invoice, to the postal operator, which then prints it out and delivers it to customers in the traditional way.

This activity was open to competition before the amendments.

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Knesset committee threatens to abrogate postal reforms (Israel)

Posted by | Jun 18, 2008 | |

As sanctions by Israel Postal Company employees are beginning to cause hardship to the poor, residents of the periphery and others, Knesset Economics Committee chairman MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) demanded that a solution be found by the end of the week.
MK Yoram Marciano (Labor) will chair a team to examine a new bill that would look at all aspects, including postal rates and bulk mail.
Erdan, who was furious over the impasse between the Communications Ministry, which refuses to lower bulk mail rates to become competitive with private entrepreneurs and make money from it fears hundreds of workers will be dismissed as the postal company continues to lose money.
The Knesset committee supports the workers, Erdan said, but it also demands that they not refuse to hand out National Insurance Institute allotments to the needy, disabled and elderly.
The sanctions, which began over a week ago, have halted mobile postal service to outlying areas, prevented allocation of NII allotments to the public, stopped collection of certain government fees and made it impossible to switch health funds or register vehicle ownership.
IPC Director-General Avi Hochman said the government owns the for-profit postal company and that it was his job to warn about its deficits. However, he said, the government must provide the “promised security net” for the company until it stabilized financially.

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US Postal Service Federal Credit Union Outsources ATM Locations to Select-A-Branch ATM Network

Posted by | Jun 18, 2008 | |

Select-A-Branch ATM Network (“S-A-B”) announced that the US Postal Service Federal Credit Union (“USPS FCU”) has outsourced five branch ATM locations to S-A-B. In addition, USPS FCU has now joined the S-A-B Network, providing branded, surcharge-free transactions to its own card holders.

S-A-B ATMs are equipped with the company’s patent-pending software, which allows multiple financial institutions to deliver branded transactions through each S-A-B ATM. When the card holder of a participating institution swipes their card at any S-A-B ATM, they are instantly presented with transaction screens branded with the logo, colors and marketing messages of that particular institution. The surcharge is then shifted to the institution, resulting in a surcharge-free transaction to the card holder.

Aside from S-A-B’s standard customer service and brand extension benefits, providing outsourcing services to USPS FCU provides the credit union with the added benefit of eliminating ATM ownership and maintenance costs, which are now shouldered by S-A-B. And, since S-A-B participant banks and credit unions drive traffic to S-A-B locations, USPS FCU can expect to turn what has been traditionally known as a cost center into a profit center.

S-A-B transactions are processed by Fiserv, a Fortune 500 company that provides processing services for over 3000 financial institutions. “Fiserv is very enthusiastic about the evolution of S-A-B,” commented Tom Fox, VP of Sales for Fiserv’s EFT division. “We believe that more and more institutions will look to outsource their ATM offerings over time, and S-A-B appears to have a superior model that provides benefits to customers, merchant locations and financial institutions alike.”

S-A-B’s USPS FCU locations are in the Washington DC/Baltimore area.

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