Strike action by self-employed parcel deliverers today hit PostNL for the fourth day in a row while unions have called a nationwide strike at TNT Italy on Monday (July 20) in protest at 239 planned redundancies.
Several depots have been blocked and protests held outside the Dutch postal operator’s head office in the last few days by some of the 1,145 independent parcel deliverers who are demanding a higher pay rise and better working conditions than the company is offering.
PostNL told customers in a service message that it expects to deliver 85% of packages today but 15% will be delayed by a day or more. The company apologised for this “very unpleasant situation” and stressed it is doing everything possible to get parcels delivered as quickly as possible. Extra deliveries are being made in the evening.
“We expect to clear a large part of the backlog this weekend and the rest on Monday,” the company said. PostNL emphasised that it remains open to dialogue with the striking workers.
The dispute broke out after many of PostNL’s self-employed parcel deliverers rejected an offer of a 10% pay increase or to become company employees under the company’s collective labour agreement. About two thirds of the delivery workforce are self-employed, and only about 400 are on employment contracts.
Meanwhile, the Italian transport unions Filt Cgil, Fit Cisl and Uiltrasporti have jointly called a nationwide strike by all workers at TNT Italy for Monday July 9. They claimed that the company had refused to withdraw plans for 239 redundancies.
“The only objective followed by TNT remains that of reducing labour costs by making workers redundant without opening a real and strict review of its strategy and without a credible plan to relaunch its business, which is all the more necessary in order to guarantee workers against the background of the possible acquisition by FedEx,” they declared.
The three unions said they favoured moves to make working times more flexible and to improve productivity while safeguarding jobs.
TNT Italy’s competitiveness improvement plan, which is designed to increase customer satisfaction, involves a €30 million investment in depot automation, health & safety and IT. The aim is to improve operational processes, service and productivity.
TNT spokesman Cyrille Gibot told CEP-Research: “Local back office activities will be reorganised, but we wish to emphasise that this plan doesn’t include any depot closure. Other actions concern the conclusion of the outsourcing program already announced two years ago. The number of employees involved is 239. The social plan is under discussion with the unions, and should be completed by the end of this year.”
Following the unions' decision to call for a strike on 20 July, TNT Italy has put a contingency plan in place to mitigate any effect on customers.
TNT stressed it believes that there are all the elements necessary for a quick resolution and reiterates its will to engage in dialogue with the involved counterparts while confirming the need to go on with the plan.
