Parliament tells EU Commission postal liberalisation is not working

Publié: 10 Septembre 2010
Google translate: 



Said El Khadraoui speaking to postal workers



 Hundreds of postal workers demonstrated in Strasbourg outside the European Parliament this week to demand that there be a stop put on the destructive postal market liberalisation. The demonstrators heard from several workers who had lost their jobs or who had their working conditions seriously affected by the liberalisation and who also said "liberalisation has not delivered a better quality of service, in fact the service is much, much worse!" UNI europa Post & Logistics Global Union is demanding a moratorium on the liberalisation until all the problems identified by the workers and the MEP's have been resolved.



A number of MEP's lead by Netherlands MEP Denis de Jong from the GUE group , and the leader of the Socialist Group, Said El Khadraoui from Belgium, and Jutta Steinruck from Germany spoke at the rally saying that they supported UNI europa Post & Logistics Global Union's call for a moratorium on the liberalisation of the EU postal market.



Workers at the rally told how their jobs had been destroyed, how they had been replaced by precarious work, with part time work and "piece rate" work becoming the norm. This was leading to a rapid decrease in the quality of mail service, with problems with mail security and no guarantee of delivery times.



The MEP's said this was unacceptable that the EU Commission had promised the Parliament that an open European postal market would lead to innovation and better quality of service, where in fact the reverse had happened.



Also speaking at the rally were Oliver Roethig from the UNI Finance Department, who told the workers they should keep fighting for a moratorium as one of the main reasons finance workers found themselves in a serious employment situation with the Financial Crisis was because of flawed regulation. He said workers in all sectors needed to work together to get proper regulation of our industries that guaranteed decent jobs. Christy Hoffman, UNI Deputy General Secretary said she came originally from the United States , the home of the free market, and they had not liberalised their postal market. They saw that the competing global delivery companies like UPS and FedEx would not build networks that serviced rural, isolated and poor communities, only the postal service delivered a truly universal service. She said this idea in Europe to liberalise the postal market was not shared in other large industrialised countries and it was doomed to failure.



The next day in the Parliament, several political groups supported a question that had been raised with the EU Commission on these issues. The question which was put to the Parliament by the Chair of the Transport sub committee, Brian Simpson from the UK, was directed at the Commission and demanded answers to the concerns the workers had expressed at the demonstration outside the day before, and also later in the parliament at a meeting open for workers and MEP's. Central to the MEP's concerns was the question of how was the EU Commission measuring the impact of the changes on the social conditions for postal workers and how were they ensuring that the obvious social dumping now taking place in the liberalised postal markets would be stopped? The MEP's wanted evidence to show that the clause in the 3rd Postal Directive (the instrument delivering postal market liberalisation) ensuring social conditions are maintained was being implemented. They said that to date there was no evidence whatsoever that the Commission was ensuring that this clause was being upheld.



The other main concerned raised by all MEP's speaking on the question was that they saw no evidence that the EU Commission was ensuring the protection of the Universal Service. Several MEP's speaking in the debate raised their concerns that the Commission has done nothing to help Member States to understand how they can protect and supply a universal postal service without having to resort to huge government subsidies, the idea of which in the current economic climate is a fantasy.



All the political Groups in the Parliament from the GUE-NDE group, the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the EPP spoke up demanding answers from the Commission. Brian Simpson leading the debate said that the evidence postal workers were presenting to him showed the Commission had not delivered on it's promise to ensure that social dumping would not take place and that a Universal Postal Service at an affordable price could be guaranteed. Denis de Jong told the parliament that in his country where liberalisation had already taken place, this had devastated the postal market and thousands of jobs were being lost. Any jobs the new competitors had created were done so by slashing costs to compete and by social dumping with no proper wages or social conditions for postal workers in these new companies.



Said El Khadraoui speaking for the Socialist Group told the parliament that the Commission had failed to ensure that Member States were implementing the Directive in the manner agreed by the Parliament and that they should have a moratorium until the Parliament could be guaranteed that the serious problems seen with postal market liberalisation could be resolved.



Isabelle Durant from the Greens, said that it was clear this liberalisation was failing and the Commission needed to rethink this failed policy and to immediately do an impact report to show what was really happening in the postal market. Sabine Wils from the GUE group also supported totally the idea of a moratorium and told the Commission that they should stop ignoring the clear evidence from the postal market and the concerns of postal workers and customers and start looking at ways to ensure a quality universal postal service was maintained with decent jobs for the postal workers, not jobs where wages and salaries had been slashed and destroyed.



Other speakers who attacked the Commissions plans were Marc Tarabela from Belgium, Silvia-Andrea Ticau from Roumania, Ines Ayala Sender from Spain. In fact a very large number of MEP's asked for the right to speak, supporting the UNI europa Post & Logistics position and demanding from the Commission answers as to why they had not delivered on the social aspects and guaranteeing the universal service.



Commissioner Barnier in response told the parliament that next year he was going to set up a users group to look at the impact of liberalisation which would include customers, users groups and trade unions. He said the Commission wanted to safeguard social conditions and the universal service but he also told the parliament that the Commission did not support a moratorium and that the parliament had passed the Directive with a majority of members. In his response to the concerns of the MEP's he said it was up to member states to develop laws and policies to implement the Directive. But he did says he would ensure that there would at some stage be an impact study.



In the view of UNI europa Post & Logistics Global Union, this is "passing the buck" by the EU Commission. Commissioner Barnier cannot put conditions in place for a liberalised market and then say, "sorry we just put this there you make it happen"! Further in UNI's view an impact study next year is too late, the damage is already being done and the liberalisation will be complete by then with no turning back. This again is a "cop out" from the Commission and as we have been telling them for the last two years, this should have been done a long time ago and to now say it would be done without a moratorium is disingenuous on the part of the Commission. Further to tell the Member States that it is now up to them how they implement this flawed Directive without giving them proper support and advice is a failure by the Commission to ensure the Directive is implemented as agreed by the parliament. UNI europa Post & Logistics therefore demands an immediate Moratorium on the implementation of the 3rd Postal Directive.