French postal workers protest in national strike against restructuring

French postal workers took to the streets yesterday in a national strike initiated by the unionsSUD-PTT, CFDT, CGT and CFTC to protest against the worsening working conditions and La Poste’s

According to La Poste’s management, over 13% of postal workers participated in the strike whilethe union SUD-PTT named a higher percentage rate of 20-25% and CGT went even further with anestimated rate of 30-35%. CFDT, however, tried to put the figures into perspective saying thatattaining a participation rate of around 15% was already an achievement considering a generally lowparticipation of postmen.

The French postal operator reportedly made an effort to ensure that customers would still beserved and services would be maintained during the strike action, whether it concerned mail,parcels or banking services to minimise the disruption as much as possible.

According to French media, several hundred La Poste workers demonstrated in front of La Poste’shead office in Paris, under the windows of CEO Jean-Paul Bailly.

SUD-PTT said the postmen were tired of endless reorganisations at La Poste’s services withthe greatest number of redundancies amounting to 11,700 in 2010.

“The goal is to save money on payroll and to increase the operating income for the sole benefitof shareholders (the French state and the state-owned bank Caisse des Dépôts CDC), even thoughmanagement continues to talk about volume decline and decreased activity. This results in morework, increased pressure from the management, increased costs and deteriorating workingconditions,” the union stated.

SUD-PTT claimed that La Poste has implemented a deliberate policy of permanently destabilisingstaff by managerial methods which would lead to health problems among employees and unhappiness atwork.

Colette Duynslaeger, general secretary of CGT, agreed, saying: “For the unions, social misery iscaused to a great extent by the 11,700 jobs eliminated in 2010 which were not replaced.” This hasled to a high rise in sick leave and long holidays driving up the costs by €4 million in two years,she added.

This is the first national postal strike taking place in France since La Poste’s transformationinto a public limited company last year. Last month, La Poste’s supervisory board officiallyapproved a capital increase of €2.7 billion which will result in state-owned bank Caisse des Dépôts(CDC) taking a 26% stake in the French postal operator.