English pdf - UPU - Universal Postal Union

“Give us a seat at thetable...”We have this rare asset of workers,who know their communities andhave face-to-face contact withpeople, who are skilled at dealingwith the range of issues, whichpost offices have to deal with.The future is about havingpeople with the skills to do the jobthroughout the services sector andwe are going to see more professionalisationgenerally. I am notbuying that we cannot train peopleup, that you cannot motivate themto provide new services. It requirescommitment and investment inpeople and strategy. And you willfind the postal unions and peopleready to meet these new challenges.What we don’t like is this lackof ambition and cynicism, this runningaway from collective agreementsand secure employment.How the hell can you provide a decentpostal service if you are notsure what your hours, wages andholidays are? Where’s the motivationthere? So, it needs a newapproach: quality jobs, qualityskills, quality services. And we cansucceed.Returning to globalisation and therecent round of liberalisation of thepostal sector in Europe, whateffects did these have on postalworkers?There is a lot of frustration outthere. The European Union is notbeing honest. We adopted a pieceof legislation subject to severalrounds of negotiations. We gotcommitments. First of all, the basisupon which the legislation wasbuilt was all ideological. Theypromised to provide the evidencebut they never provided one decentshred of evidence that this deregulationand liberalisation wouldwork and we still haven’t seen it.They made a commitment thatthere would be a study on the socialimplications of change andthere would be social safety netsbuilt in and they have doneprecious little to ensure that inpractice.Who is going to come in andinvest in a network of this scale?Who? The only party interested isprivate equity and all they will do isaccelerate the destruction of thenational postal networks. I knowthe world of private equity… [andit is] only interested in niche areas.You have a cannibalized postal network;the postal operator has aninfrastructure and workers it has toinvest in and then there are peopleon the sidelines… cherry-picking…this is a corruption, not a free market;it is cannibal behaviour.What about the World Bank’s interestin the postal network?The World Bank is drinking thesame snake oil. We have had abattle with the World Bank foryears to try and get them to understandthat they have a social responsibility.For the InternationalMonetary Fund and the WorldBank to go waltzing into everystructural adjustment situation andsay ‘privatize and deregulate’, hasnot worked. Look at the advantagethat the postal network can giveyou in the emerging markets, indeveloping countries; don’t gothere and shatter it. We need tobuild infrastructure and maintainthe postal network even if peopleare on their mobile phones.Our relationship with theWorld Bank has been difficult becauseof structural adjustment. Ifwe can change the debate and,with the World Bank and the UPU,develop the network and capacityand add new services… it wouldrequire funding but would beabout innovation. That would be agood thing.One final question about the relationshipwith the UPU: quo vadis?I have to stress that this is a uniquearrangement: there is no other UNagency in the world that enablesdialogue among operators, thepostal workers and unions. Onwhere we can build our relationship…not in a carping way, not inthe ‘it’s that man from the unionagain’. We want a relationship thatis dynamic and innovative wherewe have a seat at the table. FM20 · Union Postale 3/2011