Tag: Worldwide

La Poste in agreement over night shift pay dispute

Posted by | Jun 8, 2007 | |

France’s La Poste has come to a EUR 3 million agreement with unions over a night shift pay dispute that saw sorting centres disrupted earlier this year.

The national postal operator has hammered out a nationwide deal with five trade unions to provide EUR 2.2 million in extra pay for the night services (from midnight till 6 am) and EUR 800,000 in local supplements.

The French group has also begun training its post drivers to cut down CO2 emissions by 10,000 tonnes per year.

Ten trainers are travelling France to teach the 10,000 postmen and women how to cut down emissions by simple driving techniques, helped by electronic boxes that can now monitor economic petrol consumption in towns and rural areas

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USPS begins slim jim catalog testing

Posted by | Jun 8, 2007 | |

The U.S. Postal Service last month began testing to develop better standards for letter-size booklets, also known as “slim jim” catalogs, simultaneously cautioning catalogers who may be considering switching to this format that the mailing standards for these pieces are likely to change.

As more catalogers may switch to the lower-priced format in light of the current rate increase, the agency is concerned that printers will need more precise mailing standards to avoid fabricating slim jims that would jam the agency’s delivery bar code sorters.

Slim jims measure up to 6.125 inches by 11.5 inches. The USPS considers them folded self-mailers and booklets. If they weigh 3 ounces or less and are tabbed, they are the largest size qualifying for letter-rate postage, which is significantly lower than the recently increased Standard Mail flats postage.

The USPS has said there are not many slim jims in the system now and that, when they do appear in USPS facilities, postal employees frequently put them through the more robust AFSM-100 flats sorter as opposed to the delivery bar code sorters, which handle letter mail. However, to get the lower rates, they will have to be able to go through the delivery bar code sorter machine.

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PIN wants to have as many German mail drop-off points as Deutsche Post next year

Posted by | Jun 8, 2007 | |

PIN AG chief executive Guenter Thiel told Euro am Sonntag magazine that his company wants to have as many German mail drop-off points as rival Deutsche Post AG by mid-2008. ‘Our goal is to have a branch network that is at least as large as Deutsche Post’s by the middle of 2008,’ Thiel told the weekly in an advance copy of an interview scheduled to appear in this week’s edition. At present, PIN has 500 branches, while Deutsche Post has about 12,000. PIN achieved sales of 200 mln eur last year. This year it expects sales to reach 350 mln eur. Thiel said the group could offer air mail delivery services once annual sales exceed 1.0 bln eur. ‘If we have achieved sales of 1.0 bln eur by 2009, then I can imagine that we could also transport deliveries by air,’ Thiel said. PIN is owned by Axel Springer AG, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitungsverlag GmbH & Co, Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co and Rosalia AG.

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Base rate held but many savers still to benefit from previous rate rises

Posted by | Jun 7, 2007 | |

As the Bank of England base rate stays at 5.5 per cent today, the Post Office® reveals it is the only major high-street savings provider1 in the UK to have passed on every interest rate rise in full to all of its variable rate customers in the last year.

Last week, on Monday 4 June, Post Office® customers saw their Instant Saver interest rate rise to 5.75 per cent. This followed the 0.25 per cent base rate rise in May.

And Instant Saver customers will benefit for even longer by the Post Office®’s promise to pass on base rate rises in full until January 2010. This makes Post Office® Instant Saver the UK’s best instant access savings account.

Post Office® Instant Saver also guarantees to remain within 1.0% of the Bank of England base rate for the life of the account and offers six free withdrawals a year with a flat fee of just GBP 1 for future withdrawals.

Instant Saver is available at all of the UK’s 14,000 Post Office® branches, by telephone and online. Withdrawals can be made both at branches and ATMs, offering unrivalled choice and convenience.

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Kuwait Minister: No Plan to privatize postal sector soon

Posted by | Jun 6, 2007 | |

Minister of Communications and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Sharida Al-Moasherji has refuted reports that the postal sector will be privatized soon.

Indicating that it is too early to talk about the issue as no law to that effect has been approved yet, Al-Moasherji said, “the postal sector in Kuwait is in a very pathetic condition and needs drastic improvement.” A French team specialized in the postal sector will visit Kuwait to study the problems and will offer recommendations to develop the sector and its workforce, he noted.

Meanwhile, MP Adel Al-Sarawi has accused government of not being serious about establishing a Public Authority for Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) and hinted that it is under pressure to give up the idea, reports Al-Qabas daily. Speaking at a press conference, Al-Sarawi said government has been delaying in submitting the draft law to parliament and though the Parliamentary Committee for Finance and Economic Affairs would have finished studying the project by Monday, the government did not submit anything related to the project yet.

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