Delegation protests Deutsche Post DHL’s anti-union practices

Veröffentlicht: 14 September 2011
Google translate: 

 A delegation from the UNI Post & Logistics Global Union World Conference met with the labor attaché at the German Embassy in Washington D.C. to discuss Deutsche Post DHL’s illegal use of the polygraph test. Trade union representatives handed over a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a resolution that had been passed at the conference.



Led by ver.di member, Stephan Teuscher, the delegation urged the German government, as a key shareholder in the company, to intervene in Deutsche Post DHL’s operations regarding lie detectors and encourage the company to sign a Global Framework Agreement with UNI Global Union and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF).



DHL uses the polygraph test to intimidate workers in Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and South Africa. UNI Post and Logistics conference delegates approved a resolution calling for an end to this degrading and discredited practice.



Solidarity actions against Deutsche Post DHL’s use of lie detectors were taken in various countries in the Americas. The STPC in Colombia went to the embassy and DHL locations to distribute the resolution that was passed at the conference. Representatives from SIELAS in Panama also went to the embassy and handed over the letter requesting a meeting with the ambassador. They are still awaiting a response.



Conference delegates also heard about Deutsche Post DHL subsidiary, Exel’s, exploitation of student exchange workers in the US at the Hershey’s chocolate packing plant which the company operates. The students have gone on strike several times since the beginning of August as a protest against low wages, exhausting labour and large salary deductions for rent and other costs. For most of them, the net salary is not even enough to cover the cost of their visas, which varied from 3,000 to $ 6,000. Saket Soni, Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, spoke at the conference about how the workers were effectively ‘captive labour’.



Conference delegates passed a resolution demanding that:
  • All retaliation against workers, including evicting them from their housing, halts immediately;
  • Deutsche Post DHL compensates workers the $3000 to $6000 each student paid for the cultural exchange program visa;
  • Deutsche Post DHL stop employing cheap labour through the J-1 student cultural exchange visas and fill the 400 guest workers’ jobs with local workers paid a living wage;
  • Deutsche Post DHL sign a Global Framework Agreement in order to assure all workers can exercise their fundamental rights to decent work and freedom of association.



UNI has a joint campaign with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to require Deutsche Post DHL to sign a global framework agreement to guarantee human and labour rights in the company worldwide.