As members will be aware a Europe wide protest will take place tomorrow 6th June 2007, against plans by the European Commission to open all postal business to full competition.  As a result of this all of An Post's main Post Offices will be closed between 1.00pm and 2.00pm.  The protest has been organised by UNI Postal Global Union which represents 2 million workers in the European postal sector and their families.

The CWU, which is represented on the Uni Postal Executive by our General Secretary Steve Fitzpatrick, believe that the Commission's plans will lead to a reduction in Postal Services, particularly in rural Ireland, while competition will flourish in the cities, leading to a two tier service.  An Post has never been a drain on the taxpayer and we ask for the support of all citizens in our struggle to Save the Irish Postal Service.

A protest was also held in Berlin last week when postal workers from 28 European Countries, including Ireland, marched from the Brandenburg Gate to the German Labour Ministry to hand in a petition against this flawed EU Proposal. 

Further protests and rallies are expected to take place across Europe over the next few weeks and months as postal workers continue their fight against full postal liberalisation.  An informative message from UNI Global Union to all postal workers is published below.

Message from UNI Postal Global Union to Workers in the European Postal Sector

All postal unions affiliated to UNI Postal call upon the European Parliament to reject the Commission’s proposals on the full market opening of the postal sector. UNI Postal appeals to parliamentarians to ensure that within the current debate on the further opening up of the postal sector, more emphasis is given to the working conditions of the people who are employed in the postal sector.

Our concern is that any further steps aimed at opening up the market could have significant consequences on jobs in the postal sector. Before planning further liberalisation of the postal market, the Commission asked PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to study the possible implications of the full market opening of postal services (2009). The study comes to the conclusion that the different working conditions between the incumbent operators and the new service providers can lead to a distortion of competition.

In order to ensure fair competition between postal companies and the new operators, the Prospective Study recommends that the same conditions should apply to the whole of the postal industry.

The danger that cut-throat competition triggered by wage and social dumping might cause an overall deterioration in working conditions throughout the entire sector is borne out by another study carried out in Germany. The study looked at the way conditions of employment had changed in the 10 years since the German postal market was opened up (www.input-consulting.com/publish). The results are alarming. The study shows that precarious employment conditions have become the norm in the new postal service providers’ business model. They are thus able to achieve considerable cost savings and a competitive advantage, thereby displacing the good jobs and the social security cover that were provided by the incumbent postal companies.

None of the proposals put forward so far by the EU Commission have addressed this issue in any way. And this is the main focus of our criticism today.

UNI-Europa Postal fears that unless social measures are introduced before there is any further market opening, working conditions in the European postal sector are likely to get far worse.

We therefore demand that the Postal Services Directive require all Member States to effectively ban any form of competition based on wage and social dumping in the letter post sector and to authorise new service providers only if they respect the working and pay standards of the sector. Asking Member States to regulate the problem at the national level is quite simply not good enough. We want our employment conditions to be subject to binding European law.

UNI Postal has put enormous efforts into defending the interests of the postal sector in Brussels and Strasbourg. And these have paid off.
Thus, in its opinion of 28 February 2007, the European Parliament’s Committee for Regional Development wrote:

“Particular attention should be paid to the impact of market opening on employment in the postal services sector in rural and remote areas where postal services represent an important employment opportunity. It is important particularly for the less developed regions that high-quality jobs should be created. For that reason, and to establish fair competition, the directive should prescribe that Member States take measures to ensure that comparable conditions of employment prevail in the postal services sector within the same Member State and that employment conditions with the new service providers are comparable to those with the universal service provider.”

In its Justification, the Committee concluded: “In some opened postal service markets, the conditions of work with the new service providers are significantly worse than those with the universal service provider. This leads on the one hand to a distortion of competition and on the other hand to a deterioration of the labour market in the postal services sector. These negative effects on the employment market will be felt particularly hard in the less developed regions of the EU and in rural and remote areas in receipt of funding from the structural funds.”

The European Parliament’s Committee for Employment and Social Affairs in its opinion of 12 February 2007 had this to say:

“It is also important that working conditions are not undermined by the circumvention of collective agreements which represent an effective instrument in helping to combat competition based on the lowest standards.
By contrast with other networked industries, labour costs represent 80% of operators’ overall costs and therefore may be considered as fixed costs for incumbent operators.”

In its Justification, the Committee concluded: “In view of the specificities of the sector, the quality of employment conditions can only be guaranteed through industry-wide collective agreements.”

The recommendations of the two committees are important partial victories that have been achieved by UNI-Europa Postal on behalf of workers in this sector. However, it is now up to the European Parliament to defend the interests of postal workers by insisting on the adoption of mechanisms that prevent wage and social dumping in the letter post sector that leads to cut-throat competition. This can be done through the introduction of licensing conditions in the EU Postal Services Directive which must be made binding on Member States. Competition in the EU postal sector should not degenerate into a competition for the worst working and pay conditions.

UNI-Europa Postal also believes that the postal sector represents an important pillar for the development of economic prosperity, as well as social and territorial cohesion within the EU. The creation of a pan-European internal market should be subject to a regulatory framework in the postal sector which ensures that all EU citizens have access to constant and reliable postal services which are both affordable and of high quality.

In the past, the postal market has been gradually opened up and competition allowed to develop within a controlled environment so as to provide Member States with the resources necessary to guarantee a sustainable universal service.

From the perspective of UNI-Europa Postal, it is important to ensure that this goal is not forgotten. Thus, before any new steps are taken to open the market further, the following points should be borne in mind:

• Only when the conditions of market access are the same should further steps to open the market be considered:
  Different conditions of market access and the complexity of the market opening process must be harmonised via an active regulatory policy at the EU level before any new steps are taken to open the European postal market further. Only then will a suitable point have been reached securing the ground for further market opening.
• Market opening should take place only when it can be done in a harmonised manner across the EU:
  In order to avoid a distortion of competition it is important to ensure that measures are implemented simultaneously and in an uniform manner in all Member States. Equal conditions must be created for market liberalisation so that postal operators have the same opportunities.
• 
  There should be no deterioration in the postal universal service.
  Bearing in mind that in some Member States the postal service has always assumed important social and infrastructure responsibilities, the development and functioning of the whole European single market and of social Europe depends on the quality of postal universal services.
• In the EU, only an average of 47% of the population uses the internet. Experience has shown that in the remote areas in particular, electronic communication technology is used significantly less by older persons as well as those with low educational levels. This means that a large proportion of people in the EU will rely for the foreseeable future on a high quality postal infrastructure which itself can only be guaranteed by a sufficient postal universal service. People in structurally weak areas will suffer additional disadvantages as they tend to live in regions that are considered unprofitable.

The European Union must guarantee the uniform quality of the postal universal service in each Member State in order to prevent parts of the population from being disadvantaged. The postal companies of France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus commissioned a report on the use of the reserved area for the quality of the universal service. The study comes to the conclusion that the best way to finance the universal service is through a reserved area. This confirms the position of UNI Postal. The problem of how to finance the universal service needs to be addressed before any further opening up of the market.

• The sustainable financing of the postal universal service must be guaranteed.
  An effective mechanism must be found to guarantee and secure the financing of the universal service. Until now, that guarantee was provided by a reserved area which has been gradually eroded. To date, no other method of financing has been shown to function. A deterioration in the universal service as a means of reducing costs is a step in the wrong direction.

UNI-Europa Postal calls on workers in the postal sector to oppose the recommendations of the EU Commission and to fight in the interest of jobs, working conditions and customers for a reliable postal service and a social Europe.