Deutsche Post and postal union Verdi are set to return to the negotiating table on Friday July 3 as the German postal strike enters its fourth week with about 30,000 postal workers now taking strike action and e-commerce customers warning about delays, additional costs and lost revenues.
The strike, which started on June 8, has forced the German postal group into controversial measures such as taking on temporary workers and making deliveries on Sundays to keep the backlog as low as possible, although the company claims that 80% of letters and parcels are still being delivered punctually.
Verdi announced today that it “is taking the initiative” over new talks but emphasised that the indefinite strike will continue until an agreement is reached. The dispute is formally over pay and working conditions for up to 140,000 Deutsche Post mail and parcel staff, but the heart of the conflict is over the creation of lower-paid jobs at new regional parcel delivery companies.
Verdi’s deputy chairwoman Andrea Kocsis said: “We have called on Deutsche Post to continue negotiations with us on July 3. Our aim is to reach a sustainable deal that is able to pacify the severe conflict in operations. We will maintain the indefinite industrial action until there is an agreement.”
In response, Deutsche Post DHL welcomed the union’s return to the negotiation table ‘without any pre-conditions’ and called on the union to suspend strike action ‘as a sign of good will’.
Melanie Kreis, the group’s board member for human resources, said: “I see it as a positive sign that after weeks of confrontation Verdi now wants to negotiate seriously without any pre-conditions. We have always said that we are available at any time for constructive talks and have repeatedly called on Verdi finally to negotiate over our offer. I hope we can really talk about the issues that make up the pay negotiations and that directly affect our 140,000 employees.”
At the same time, Kreis made it clear that Deutsche Post will not do a U-turn over the creation of regional parcel delivery subsidiary companies employing staff at lower pay rates in order to reduce the ‘pay gap’ between its employees and workers at competitors who have significantly lower pay. “This new structure is essential, including to ensure the Deutsche Post employees their positions at above-average conditions,” she stressed.
The 49 regional DHL Delivery companies now employ some 6,000 workers on regional collective agreements that are separate from the main Deutsche Post collective agreement for mail and parcel staff.
Meanwhile, the strike has started to hit the German e-commerce industry although leading competitors have not seen many volumes switch away from the market leader.
A massive 77% of e-retailers have been impacted ‘strongly’ or ‘very strongly’, according to a survey by the German online trade association BVOH of about 250 mostly medium-sized members. About 40% expect delivery of about half of their goods to be delayed and nearly 20% said they fear revenue declines of up to 25% as a result of worse customer ratings.
“Medium-sized online traders in particular have been heavily impacted by the postal strike. The enormous additional workload in customer communications as well as the integration of new delivery service companies or deliveries at higher changes than budgeted are weighing down heavily on the companies,” said BVOH president Oliver Prothmann.
“But the consequences of the strike with countless millions of delayed parcels also clearly shows the market position of online traders,” he added.
Hermes, which is Deutsche Post DHL’s leading competitor in the German B2C parcel market, confirmed to CEP-Research that it is handling some additional volumes, although its capacity is limited.
“Fundamentally we look into every inquiry, check the regionally available capacity and the related workload,” said spokesman Martin Frommhold. “But it’s clear that our own long-term customers should not suffer. In addition, we are of course not only interested in temporarily ‘helping out’ but also becoming active for the new interested parties in the long-term, for example on the basis of part-loads.”
The Hermes spokesman also criticised that Deutsche Post DHL’s ‘political and tax advantages’ would apply in the new regional companies, too. “With the state-supported VAT privilege and the combined delivery of letters, advertising mail and parcels, our competitor already has significant advantages in the market. In addition, there are the enormous contributions from the lucrative letters market where Deutsche Post has nearly 90%,” he said.
“Moreover, no other parcel services company has the opportunity to fill its system with so many different products, and as a result the profits of the (other) market participants thus end up much lower,” Frommhold pointed out.
