DHL faces delays in parcel deliveries in Germany over the coming days due to union protests overallegedly excessive short-term contracts at the company.
The Verdi union, which represents the bulk of Deutsche Post DHL’s employees in Germany, hascalled official union meetings in the company’s parcel sorting centres tomorrow evening (Friday).These will hold up sorting and deliveries on Saturday, including St Nicholas Day gifts.
The union claimed that DP DHL is expanding parcel activities in Germany with excessive useof limited short-term contracts. Some 24,000 out of 131,000 operationally active workers now havesuch contracts, with even higher proportions in the sorting centres and delivery operations, itsaid. Many workers had had 10 -20 such short-term contracts in succession, instead of conversion toopen-ended contracts, the union claimed.
But DP DHL rejected the union’s claims, saying that 14,700 staff are currently employed onlimited contracts, which is less than 10 per cent of the mail and parcel division’s 180,000employees, and they receive the same pay as staff on full open-ended contracts.
The company claimed its pay levels are double those of competitors, and the number of staffon short-term contracts could only be reduced if the pay structure for new employees was adjustedto a ‘market-suited’ level.
Jürgen Gerdes, DP DHL board member for mail and parcels, declared: “The futurecompetitiveness of the Post in Germany is at risk. We must make the tariff structure for newemployees more suited to the market. But as part of this we do not want to and will not touch thepay level of existing work contracts.”
DP DHL said the protest meetings tomorrow evening would damage the company and it would doeverything possible to minimise the impact on customers.
