News

UNI Post & Logistics recently attended the bi-annual conference of the CWU Ireland, and Neil Anderson Head of UNI Post & Logistics and John Baldwin from the CWU UK, who is the Chair of the Post European Social Dialogue, made contributions to the conference on how UNI was dealing with the liberalisation in the postal market in Europe. The conference heard that the decision by the European Parliament to proceed with Postal Liberalisation was disappointing but nevertheless the delay achieved by the Unions in UNI Global Union gives the opportunity to prepare for full competition. The conference also heard from the CWU General Secretary, Steve Fitzpatrick, who said the union now needs to do work to ensure that the Irish Government transposes the European Directive on this matter into Irish Law, fully recognising the importance of the Universal Service Obligation. He also said that “the Postal and Courier market has continued to develop with a shift away from letter mail, due to electronic substitution, to an increase in the delivery of physical mail (i.e. expresses, packets, parcels and logistics). Indeed, in the delivery area, the lines between parcel and logistics, collections and deliveries have become increasingly blurred. The main players in the express, packet, parcel and logistics collection and delivery industry are DHL, TNT, Federal Express, with UPS and Interlink the only two companies within which we have Union representation for the CWU. Some elements of those major international courier firms are organised by other Unions and there will be an increasing need for us to co-operate with those Unions, in order to ensure the whole collection and delivery market is organised.”