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The conference opened with a contribution from the General Secretary, Billy Hayes. He had a stark message for the UK delegates. Billy believed that ‘privatisation was still on the agenda’ and that the ‘Neo-liberal vision still driving the European political agenda’. We were also facing a potential break-up of Royal Mail because of the current review. He stressed the need for us to listen to other Union’s experiences in order for us to tailor our response. Dave Ward, DGS (P) also stressed the need for us to assess the impact of liberalisation at the European level. He believed that the Government review was crucial and could be used as a platform to win concessions from both POSTCOMM and Royal Mail. The British experience was one of the General Public paying more for a worse service. The European Postal Directive was ‘not in the best interests of workers’ and the UK had an additional problem in that the ‘Government acting against best interests of our members’. The political opposition was now opposing Post Office closures. There is a need to expose POSTCOMM’s position, stating that the introduction of competition has affected the USO (Universal Service Obligation), so much so, that Royal Mail has stated that they cannot continue to fund the USO in the near future. Royal Mail is also at fault. They stated they were ready for the challenge of competition when they only weapon they had was a challenge to our member’s pay and conditions. They wouldn’t challenge DAS (Down-stream access) and are now stating that the ‘final-mile’ i.e. delivery, was making them no money. DAS is in effect ‘commercial suicide’. The CWU won last year, during the ‘toughest dispute ever’ and ‘defeated Market-Rate pay’ even when the Government and the employer stood together. There was a need for Union across Europe to stand together to oppose the liberal agenda. Jeremy Baugh, Head of Research, gave a presentation. He gave an overview of the EU Postal Directive; the UK experience, and our belief that POSTCOMM had failed in it’s primary duty to protect the USO by it’s actions in introducing competition in the form it has. Jeremy then took questions from the floor. An Poste, the Irish Post Office, asked if there was any calculation in the directive for the cost of the USO? There is not. The Belgium delegate asked what the USO was and who pays. Jeremy replied that at the moment in Britain the Royal Mail did. John Monks, General Secretary of the ETUC addressed the conference stressing the need to protect the Universal Service and protect the rights of workers across Europe. Brian Simpson M.E.P. then spoke about his work on the European Postal Directive on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. He spoke of many years opposition to the directive which has now passed mainly due to the lack of any ‘social’ provision, i.e. protection for workers. He did believe that it was worth continuing to fight as even the European Commission and the member Governments were still taking different approaches. The French delegate then gave an overview of the French approach to liberalisation. Needless to say France was opening up the market last. He also outlined the protection that current French Law was putting into place to protect the USO (and in effect LA POSTE); a matching fund to subsidise Rural PO’s, and the maintenance of six day delivery by all new entrants to all addresses. He also stressed the need for collective agreements to cover all Postal Operators to prevent ‘social-dumping’, i.e. minimum wage jobs/temporary contracts etc. The Dutch delegate gave an overview of the last ten years in the Netherlands. To illustrate, the Dutch went from 2000 Post Offices to 250 and are going to close the rest and just have outlets in shops. Competition is in place with ‘Selektpost’ being one of the main competitors. They deliver only two days a week. Their terms and conditions are governed by pieces of mail delivered, not an hourly rate. As the delegate put it ‘Labour conditions are not market-proof’. Suffice to say it was extremely familiar to the UK delegates. Full Liberalisation has been delayed by a dispute with Germany. We then had a presentation by Nigel Stapleton, the chair of POSTCOMM. He welcomed the review of the industry He gave an overview of where the regulator believed us to be. He did state his disappointment that End to End (E2E) competition has actually REDUCED since the introduction of DSA mail.
The German delegate then gave his overview. Germany liberalised fully in January this year. Deutsch Post has already been privatised. It was emphasised how easy it was to get a Postal Licence in Germany. However, all the competition, as in Holland, has been over price. This is mainly achieved by paying below par wages. The German Government was persuaded last year to oppose this option, and introduced a minimum wage law for the Postal Sector. All well and good but then TNT (one of the Main Competitors) set up its own Union (initially 19 members) and opposed this, as they ‘had not been consulted’. They also went to the trouble of ‘persuading’ some of their employees to demonstrate against being paid more! The appeal against the law was upheld in one German court but the German Government is currently appealing this. The Postal Law in Germany actually allows a licence to be withdrawn if pay is 10% less than previously, however no licence has been removed as yet. Also the effect of the current dispute with Holland over liberalisation has yet to brought to a conclusion. We then had a presentation from Alex Smith, Director for Strategy and Competition for Royal Mail. As in the Northampton Briefing, he stated that Royal Mail’s position to the review would be to ask for a narrowing of the Regulatory Framework, to include stamped mail only. This would then let them price Business Bulk Mail (franked, PPI etc.) on a commercial basis. He also stated that the business was also opposed to the break-up. I asked the question that I asked Mr Smith in Northampton. “How can a pricing structure that isn’t even-handed be universal”? He again stated that whilst he would love to provide social customers with the service they currently enjoy the economics of the market wouldn’t allow him to. The Slovak delegate welcomed the delay in liberalisation in Eastern EU countries (2016 instead of 2011). He outlined the steps his Union had taken to inform the Slovak public of the dangers of liberalisation by running a campaign in the main national paper in Slovakia. When the campaign began 80% of the Slovak public believed liberalisation to be a ‘good’ idea. After the campaign the figure was reversed to 80% against. As he put it, once people understood that they might have to go to the next town or village to pick up their mail they suddenly decided it might not be a good idea! The Spanish contribution began with the delegate stating that there was definitely a need for solutions and new answers regarding the ‘Social Model’ for the Postal Market. The Belgium operator was part-privatised in 2005 in a complex deal with the Danish Post Office as a partner. They invested €340 million to modernise their system. The Regulator issues licences and 8% of the market has gone to other operators. He also stressed the need for a better definition of what is meant by USO and also emphasised the need to prevent ‘Social Dumping’ by larger operators setting up low cost operations. Neil Anderson, the newly elected head of UNI Postal, spoke last and welcomed the contributions made by all the delegates. He added that it was crucial to organise internationally at this time. He also advised that it might also help to liaise with the Universal Postal Union, the UN agency that oversees Postal exchanges between countries. He then outlined the three priorities that he believed we all needed to follow:-
‘Quality Service means Quality jobs for our members’
He then went on to stress that the break-up of Mail Networks, such as Royal Mail, needed to be fought by concerted political action. There was also the major need to organise in rival operators so that they couldn’t be used as vehicles for ‘Social Dumping’. There was no doubt that this would be challenging but there was no way we could allow fellow workers to be exploited in ways we would never allow our own members to suffer. Jane Loftus, CWU President, who chaired the conference, then brought in Billy Hayes to sum up. Billy thanked everyone for their contributions and stated that the conference had certainly opened many eyes to the challenges facing us on a European level and also the similarities in the challenges we all faced. He hoped that we could carry on in this way to achieve our aims and objectives. Jane closed the Conference and thanked all for their attendance, especially the translators. |
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Members will be aware that we are currently facing major difficulties due to the introduction of competition in the Postal market and its consequences. In this we are not alone, the Union via its membership of UNI (Union Network International) decided to call this conference in order that both we and our European colleagues could share our experiences so far of liberalisation and try to co-ordinate our responses to it.
He was pressed from the floor to answer the point that Royal Mail used POSTCOMM’s need for nine month notice on new products as an excuse not to introduce them. He flatly denied that this was the case. He again stated his belief that it was right and proper that because the sender pays the Postage they should have the major say in how the market operates.