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For this article we spoke to deliverers who work for PostNL, but the circumstances are similar at GLS and DPD, experts say. Only Bpost has its parcels delivered by employees with a full-time contract, with bonuses for Sunday work. Despite fierce competition, the postal company has managed to maintain its market share so far. In recent years, it has always accounted for 40 to 45 percent of the Belgian market in terms of volume, compared to 10-15 percent for PostNL and DPD, and 5-10 percent for GLS. PostNL announced on Friday that it is giving chase with an investment in two new parcel depots and two automated sorting centers. That should more than double its capacity to 500,000 parcels per day, approximately the volumes that Bpost operates.
Bpost accuses PostNL of creating an uneven playing field with its practices. “I think the government is aware of the need to do something about it,” Dirk Tirez, the new CEO, told De Tijd this week. But the company appears to be adapting its practices to those of the competition. ‘You have three types of contracts at Bpost: statutory employees, contractual employees, whose salary can evolve, and contractual employees, who negotiate their salary once and then do not see it increase again, even if they have worked there for 20 years,’ says Jean-Pierre Nyns of ACOD Post. ‘We notice that more and more people are getting these last contracts. In addition, the workload has risen sharply and we recently started delivering on Sundays, which our competitors don’t.’
Because it feels like an injured party, Bpost filed a civil suit in the lawsuit against PostNL and GLS. It accuses them of conducting unfair competition with their system with subcontractors and self-employed drivers. The trade union BTB-ABVV, a number of subcontractors and the RSZ also submitted files, which will be combined for a first meeting on 17 September. ‘We hope for a conviction’, says Wim De Jonghe, union secretary at BTB-ABVV. ‘The parcel companies risk high fines. We can set a precedent and then tackle the rest of the industry.”
Comment PostNL
PostNL works in our country with 220 subcontractors, who employ 1,500 drivers. In a response, the company says it is not aware of any harm. We are convinced that we pay more than enough to ensure that all entrepreneurs with whom we work can meet all wage costs and social charges and realize a profit margin. ‘Our compensation model takes into account all costs that an entrepreneur has to incur and is indexed twice a year on the basis of current market conditions – think of rising wage costs, the diesel price, and so on.’
‘We stand for fair work and a decent pay for everyone who works for us or on our behalf and we also check for this. Some of the 220 delivery companies we work with are under investigation by the labor prosecutor. We fully cooperate with this. As a result of the investigation by the labor inspectorate, we are carrying out extra checks on our entrepreneurs.’
DPD also responds that it pays its subcontractors a fair price. GLS wishes to deal with the matter in court on the merits.