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UNI sends a "message in a bottle" to Brussels

Published: 9 September 2009
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More than 150 postal workers at the UNI europa Post & Logistics Conference being held in Dublin, sent a “message in a bottle” to European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. The workers meeting at the conference for trade unions throughout Europe, said that if liberalisation goes ahead as planned proposed in the recently agreed 3rd Postal Directive, then people will have to go back to sending messages in bottles if they wasn’t heir mail to get through. The postal workers are demanding an immediate moratorium on the implementation of the Directive and discussions with the Commission on how to stop the social dumping and lowering of quality and standards for postal services that is happening with liberalising the letter mail market.



Delegates to the conference were unanimous in demanding an end to the liberalisation and an immediate investigation into ways of ensuring that a quality universal postal service remains for all European citizens. The conference heard from Christoph Hermann from the PIQUE Research Study, carried out for the European Commission , that in all cases where mail had been liberalised, quality of service had declined, and the wages and conditions for postal workers, an already low paid group of workers, had been attacked.



Other presenters pointed out the failure of letter mail liberalisation in most other laces where it had been introduced and the extremely negative affects it had on the quality of service.



As a result the conference sent a strongly worded message in their “bottle” launched in the sea at the conference venue at Malahide, near Dublin.



Other issues the conference confronted were, the changes taking place in the industry with new mail products and digitalisation of mail, the serious affects of the financial crisis and how postal financial services were now a vital link for safe a secure money transfer for migrant workers and a safe and secure trusted banking service of ordinary consumers.



At the Conference, Jacques Lemercier from France and Ingeborg Saetre from Norway, were elected President an Vice President (respectively) of UNI Europa Post & Logistics, representing nearly a million postal workers in Europe.



The message to Mr McCreevy is attached