TNT today confirmed plans to dismiss up to 11,000 full-time postal workers as part of deepcost-cutting measures at TNT Post.
The news, already reported by CEP-Research earlier this year, follows TNT’s decision to seekpartnerships or even an IPO for the postal business in response to the dramatic decline in mailvolumes.
Dutch media reported at the weekend that the company had written to staff, saying the contractsof all delivery staff working more than 25 hours a week and of sorting staff working more than 15hours would be terminated. This would be due to a major reorganisation of the national postaloperator.
TNT Post chief Harry Koestra told a news conference today that the company hoped to achieve halfof the job losses through natural attrition but the rest would be compulsory redundancies. The planwill be officially submitted to the Dutch Works Council in July.
In response, angry unions have threatened industrial action to try to prevent the cutbacks,which they claim will lead to full-time staff being replaced by low-paid part-time workers.
In March, a senior TNT Post manager told an industry conference that the company planned aradical downsizing of its Dutch mail business, with 11,000 job losses, part-time staff only,widespread outsourcing and deliveries only three days a week. The Dutch postal operator wouldinstead focus on managing an “asset-free” mail network largely operated through subcontractors,Pieter Kunz, managing director of TNT’s European Mail Networks (EMN) unit, told the European PostalServices conference in Brussels.
“In the Netherlands we will make 11,000 people redundant in the next couple of years. They willbe replaced with part-timers and franchisees,” Kunz said at the time. Mail collection and deliverywould be outsourced, and TNT would become “managers of mail”.
