News

UNI affiliate SNTCT - Sindicato Nacional dos Trabalhadores dos Correios e Telecomunicações has reported the recent sacking of Pedro Miguel Martins, Anibal Miguel Castelo, both express delivery workers and Ana Cristina Silva, an administrative officer in DHL Express Portugal.



DHL Express Portugal has said their sacking was related to financial losses in 2012 and the need to shed labour costs. Yet at the same time DHL Express Portugal has on its rolls at least twelve subcontracted workers performing the same functions as the dismissed workers. Furthermore, DHL Express Portugal has recently introduced absurd price increases in domestic courier services which will lead DHL to lose additional customers which clearly contradicts the justification for the dismissal of his 3 workers. SNTCT believe DHL is purposefully creating a crisis in domestic courier services to justify the sacking of these workers and perhaps many more to come.



The dismissal of the three workers is just another in DHL Express’s abuse of workers and their rights in Portugal. Since the November 14 general strike, when 99% of workers walked off the job from the Lisbon operations centre where the sacked individuals were based, DHL Express has refused to allow SNTCT to hold to meetings with its members to discuss a number of issues. After calling for a meeting regarding the reduction in overtime and weekend pay, the union was refused access to its members and only let into the facility after the labour authority ordered DHL allow the meeting. Even then, the company provided space in a dirty and polluted area of warehouse where heavy vehicle exhaust blew over the assembled members.



UNI Post & Logistics Global Union demands that DHL respect their workers and return Martins, Castelo and Silva to their jobs and that DHL respect SNTCT as the legal and rightful representative of DHL Express workers. The company has no business sacking dedicated workers as it makes hundreds of millions of Euros of profit while using subcontracted workers to replace its permanent staff.



UNI Post & Logistics Global Union stands in solidarity with the SNTCT and supports its fight to defend the jobs and the rights of their members in DHL Express.