During national employee assemblies held on December 5 at Deutsche Post premises, Verdi, the services union, strongly criticized the German post office’s employment policy. According to Verdi, Deutsche Post systematically hires staff on fixed-term contracts so as to cut costs and is sidestepping the ‘law on part-time work and fixed term work’. According to Verdi, the post office currently has 24,000 staff on fixed term contracts amounting to 18% of the 131,000 employees deployed across the ‘letters’ and ‘packages’ sections. In the packages centers the fixed-term contract proportion is even greater at 30% and trending higher. Deutsche Post however criticizes Verdi for exaggerating the situation by including in the numbers extra staff that had to be hired to cover the busy holiday period.
Legal action. On December 5, the eve of Saint Nicolas day, many packages remained undelivered to German homes. Postal staff instead were taking part in employee assemblies that had been organized by Verdi in 31 of the company’s distribution centers. “It is not a question of warning strike action. These are totally legitimate assembly meetings to which employees have the right to attend four times a year in accordance with the law on internal company constitutions,” explained Verdi’s spokesperson Jan Jurczyk to Planet Labor, before adding that Verdi does not have the right to start a warning strike because fixed-term contract hiring policy is not covered by employees provisions in the company’s current collective agreement.
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