“Liberalisation has turned the market into the wild west. Those countries that haven’t been subjected to liberalisation yet – beware.” This is what one Dutch postal worker told a meeting organised in the European Parliament in early March.

The meeting was co-hosted by Joe Higgins MEP of the Socialist Party and was held to bring together trade union activists from the postal industry in order to share their experiences of the run up to the full liberalisation of the market in 2011. Crucially the workers also discussed ways in which they can defend their conditions and the services they provide.

The liberalisation of the postal market will allow for private companies to enter the market and offer services that have previously been exclusively delivered by the state postal companies.

Although the liberalisation process is at different stages in different countries, the meeting heard that in all countries, governments have at least started preparing for liberalisation. This has seen serious attacks on workers’ pay and conditions and also a worsening of services to the public.

The postal market in Europe is huge. In 2007 the EU postal sector was worth €94bn. By liberalising the market, it will allow private companies get a share of this. Profit will become the primary goal of these companies. This will inevitably mean a diminishing of many of the services offered by the postal service and serious pressure on the wages and conditions of postal workers as the private companies drive for extracting as much profit as they possibly can.

The liberalisation of the market will also mean a pressure to privatise the service around Europe. Joe Higgins said at the meeting that, “The key to why there is a drive to privatise the service is that it is actually very profitable and private capital want to get their hands on it.”

The postal industry is a big employer. It employs 1.4 million workers across the EU. None of the new private companies that are coming into the market are paying wages equivalent to the existing publically owned companies. A recent UNI (an international union federation) report found that on average these companies are paying 20% less.

A postal worker from the Netherlands, where the market is fully liberalised gave an example of the working conditions in these new companies. “Private companies are cowboys, they pay their workers according to piece work, not a salary or hourly rate, if you don’t get job done, you don’t get paid. This means that people are paid very low wages.”

The existence of these kind of employers that are in competition with state owned companies means that workers in the state owned firms are under big pressure. “In the collective agreement of TNT the workers were promised a 0.7% increase in wages. TNT is now telling its workers they need 25% wage cut over next 2 years to keep their jobs”, the Dutch postal worker continued.

Francois, a postal worker in Brussels, and member of our sister Belgian party the LSP/PSL, spoke about the effects of liberalisation on workers, “Since competition was opened up to private postal companies there has been a loss of jobs. In 1991, there were 43,000 workers at the post office in Belgium, now there are fewer than 35,000.” He also gave examples of how workers’ conditions have been eroded,”Now, there are lesser benefits than previously. Workers are on fixed term contracts of 6 months with even worse terms and conditions. It is not as if those on the older contract are well paid, I earn €25,000 gross per annum and that’s after working 25 years. Compare that to the CEO of the company who gets €800,000- €900,000. He earns more in a year than I will over my 37 years of employment put together!”

A speaker from Germany told the meeting how in “TNT (private postal operator in Germany), workers on fixed term contracts earn 50-60% less than German post office workers. Workers there are actually dependent on Social Welfare to supplement their income”.

Even in countries that have not yet liberalised their postal market jobs are under attack. “The national post office is cutting jobs to be ahead of the pack” a speaker from the French postal workers union told the meeting.

The liberalisation of the market will also mean worse services to the public. The less profitable aspects of the postal services such as delivery of mail in isolated areas and the maintenance of rural post offices will come under threat. The meeting heard many reports of how this was occurring. Joe Higgins told the meeting how, “In 10 years, 10,000 postal outlets have closed across Europe. This has very serious effects, naturally on employment for postal workers, but also very serious social effects, particularly in rural areas. In many areas the post office and postal delivery staff play an important social role in society. In many cases it is the only regular point of contact for those living in isolated areas.”

One argument that those in favour of liberalisation put forward is that there is a “universal service guarantee” that will, they argue, mean that these services will be maintained. This has not been the experience in places where markets have been already liberalised. This is shown in a UNI study that shows that a liberalised market results in a decrease in service available, closures of post offices and a subsequent detrimental effect on quality of service for postal customers.

“The delivery service is losing its social side. In Belgium we are told that we have to speed up deliveries and there are even ‘time in motion’ studies that tell us that we have 9 seconds to put a helmet on! How are we meant to interact with the public particularly the elderly when we work with this kind of pressure,” Francois told the meeting.

Even this minimal universal service is under threat and is not guaranteed, “universal service is to be reviewed half way through the year – residential mail could be excluded?” the meeting was told by a German trade unionist.

There has also been a closure of post offices. This is quite starkly shown in France where there were “17,000 post offices in the past, now it is at 9,000 and is due to be reduced to 3,600″.

With the liberalisation of the market, the private companies concentrate on the more profitable business, leaving the state to supply the loss making services. The loss of these profitable sectors of the market means that the state loses revenue from these companies. Now the postal market becomes a drain on resources and in order to maintain the “universal service guarantee” in many countries the state has to give funding to private companies. The example of Finland was given by a speaker from the Finnish Postal Trade union, “In Finland the state owned post office made a profit of €30-80m for the state. Now that it is privatised the state will have to actually pay private operators €150m for rural services. This will be a big drain on state funds”.

Following reports about how liberalisation is affecting the postal service’s there was some discussion on how to oppose this process. Joe Higgins opened this section of the meeting, “The process of liberalisation has gone very far. The trade union movement as a whole should have fought liberalisation and privatisation from the very beginning. It should not have been allowed to get where it is today. Unfortunately, unions went along with the process. We need now to discuss how we fight to defend conditions and quality of service going into the future. Postal services should have maintained under full public ownership and bring them under democratic control of workers and the public who are served”

There was some debate around the question of UNI’s campaign to have a moratorium on the implementation of liberalisation. A Greek postal worker told the meeting, “My country is under attack. Workers and postal workers are under attack. The way in which directives are drawn up is linked to general policy of EU; this is a neo-liberal policy that is being implemented. I do not think that a temporary moratorium or derogation is going to help us solve the problem.”

UNI is calling a demonstration in Brussels in mid April to highlight these issues. This demonstration is supported by Joe Higgins and the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party and the international organisation it is affiliated to, the Committee for a Workers’ International, will attend the demonstration. In addition to these actions which can highlight what is happening, there is a need for the unions to organise action on the ground to combat the effects of liberalisation and to fight for the re-establishment of publicly owned national postal systems across Europe.

As Terry Kelleher, a postal worker from Ireland and Socialist Party Councillor, explained:

“The post office across the EU is heavily unionised, trade unions must launch active campaign up to and including industrial action to defend members, services and jobs. Such a campaign would need to be linked up country by country. In essence, we need to prepare our members for further attacks because of this crisis. This means a fight on the ground. That’s what the trade union movement is meant to be about.”

For a report on the meeting from UNI, please click here.

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