Faced with a shrinking postal market and increased competition following deregulation, TNT Post gave warning of 4,500 job cuts. After weeks of sporadic strikes the company reached an agreement in principle with Dutch trade unions to reduce this figure to 2,300. At least 1,700 redundant staff will be transferred to profitable divisions of the company. TNT also withdrew its initial demand that concessions on redundancies be linked to an agreement on wage moderation.
After four weeks of sporadic strikes each lasting up to several days, TNT Post and the trade unions reached agreement in principle on the overall number of job losses at TNT. The number of redundancies will be almost halved from 4,500 to 2,300. In the end, TNT withdrew its initial demand that concessions on redundancies be linked to an agreement on wage moderation.
Once again, it took some effort for TNT and the unions to reach agreement (see NL1003019I). The unions AbvaKabo FNV and CNV Publieke Zaak played a decisive role in the negotiations. The sector-wide Union for Postal Workers (BVPP) withdrew after three rounds of negotiations because the union wanted to spare the company – and the Christmas post – further damage.
Retaining more jobs without promise of wage moderation
The agreement set the total number of redundancies at 2,300, saving 2,200 jobs. At least 1,700 employees, including postal delivery staff, will be transferred to TNT’s profitable auto unit and parcel post division. In the last round of negotiations, the social partners also agreed that the company would seek positions for another 200 employees in these departments.
In addition, the expiry of the temporary contracts of 300 employees has been postponed until the end of 2013. This group, made up of older people and disabled workers, may remain in service for a longer period of time because they enjoy fewer opportunities in the job market. They will be given more time to find another job. TNT will make additional resources available to the company’s mobility centre to enable it to provide more work-to-work programmes.
Finally, TNT will join forces with external parties to explore opportunities to engage the 2,300 redundant staff members in a secondment process. These workers would then be employed by a secondment company at a market-based wage. This will prevent them from having to seek recourse to the Unemployment Benefits Act (WW). However, this project would need government funding to get off the ground.
Threat of dismissal not new
At the beginning of 2010, the unions clashed with TNT Post over restructuring at the company, as well as wage adjustments and the number of redundancies (forced or otherwise). By spring 2010, 11,000 proposed job losses were on the table and the unions threatened to strike action if this number could not be cut. In exchange for guaranteed employment for all employees for three years, the company then demanded a 15% wage cut. Eventually, TNT Post and the unions agreed on a lower number of forced redundancies (4,500) and the demand for a wage cut was withdrawn after industrial action (NL1003019I).
Deregulation in shrinking postal market causes problems for TNT
Along with the effects of automation and a shrinking market (decreasing postal volume), TNT Post has had to contend with unwanted competition. In 2009, the government gave the green light for a deregulated service market (NL0904029I), opening up the market to companies such as Sandd and DHL Global Mail.
As a result, TNT Post has been forced to reconsider the traditional employment model of postal delivery staff with permanent positions in the company. These individuals have become too expensive. Increasingly, the postal delivery workers who traditionally worked full time for the state-owned company are being replaced with staff on flexible arrangements, delivering post for a few hours a day. TNT launched a large-scale advertising campaign to recruit such staff, which meant that they were firing people on the one hand while simultaneously attracting people to work under worse employment conditions. However, these less favourable employment conditions are the same as those at competing companies such as Sandd and DHL Global Mail.
Dutch government’s response
The Dutch cabinet has called for a halt to this ‘race to the bottom’ through the imposition of a collective agreement obligation on all companies. The country’s House of Representatives, however, recognises that the pressure to open up the market has led to severe pressures on postal service providers. The consequences for TNT Post’s traditional workforce are particularly severe. The House of Representatives has therefore asked an advisory committee to review the entire postal market and issue a recommendation in the form of an inventory of the problems faced by the deregulated market.
Marianne Grünell, Hugo Sinzheimer Institute (HSI)