The new collective agreement at the German parcel delivery company, Deutsche Post DHL, has angered and disappointed letter and parcel carriers and many other postal workers. “The collective agreement is not just bad: we struck for more. But it also goes hand in hand with 8,000 job cuts,” said Silke, a postal worker from the German state of Hesse. “Thousands of job cuts at the postal and parcel service! That is unacceptable.”
Silke belongs to the over 54 percent of postal union (Verdi) members who opposed the new collective agreement in a survey conducted in March. Despite majority opposition, the Verdi leadership accepted the deal. This was despite the fact that just two days after the new agreement was announced, it became known that Deutsche Post DHL plans to cut 8,000 jobs in the postal and parcel service.
The Postal Action Committee invites you to an online meeting this Thursday, April 10, at 7 p.m. German time to discuss the next steps in the fight against job cuts, wage theft and work stress together with public service employees and Berlin public transit workers, the BVG. We emphasize: The jobs and conditions of employees are more important than the profit interests of a narrow and privileged upper class! Get in touch by sending a WhatsApp message to the mobile number +49 163-3378 340 or register using the form at the end of this article.
The Postal Action Committee proposes to set up committees in all sorting centers, outposts and post offices. These must be independent of the union bureaucrats and must prepare an indefinite full strike. This must be done together with employees in the public sector and in Berlin’s public transport system, who are in the same situation as we postal workers.
More than 25,000 readers so far have accessed our WSWS article from April 2, “ DHL Deutsche Post: Verdi overrides member opposition, accepts real wage cuts and job losses for German postal workers.” Many postal workers from delivery, sorting centers and the general postal service have since contacted the Action Committee.
“Your article has really made the rounds in our mail center,” reported Silke, who works in the mail center on the night shift. “There are already too few of us before these job cuts.” She had assumed that her colleagues who had perhaps previously worked at the company would be brought back, “but not that even more people would be forced out!” Her demand: “The most important thing now is to stop the job cuts.”
Bernd, a delivery driver from the state of Saarland, also cited the threat of job cuts as the reason why he voted “no” to the proposed contract. “During Corona, the Post made huge profits,” says Bernd, who has been working in the profession for more than 30 years. “But now all it takes is a small drop in profits and they immediately start cutting staff.” Bernd said he was considering leaving Verdi, which is why he contacted the Action Committee.
Many postal workers said they wanted to “quit Verdi.” “Member for 25 years—now I’m out!” wrote Ingo on Facebook. “Verdi is just a junk pile,” grumbled an older civil servant who drove for the union and reached out to us from the Bergisch region. He received the WSWS article from his wife, also a postal worker. His opinion: “The deal they made is a joke.” He referred to the works council responsible for him with words that are not appropriate to publish, but this much is clear: he does not have a high opinion of it.
The job cuts are a clear example of how the needs and interests of the employees are diametrically opposed to those of the shareholders, the Board of Directors and Verdi’s top management. Verdi board member Andrea Kocsis has been working in a “trusting relationship” (as it says in the annual report) with the Management Board for 18 years and received a princely 364,000 euro in 2024 in compensation for her services.
CEO Tobias Meyer, who, like HR Director Thomas Ogilvie, moved to DHL Post from investment consultant McKinsey, initially justified the job cuts citing the 7.2 percent decline in operating profit (EBIT) to 5.9 billion euro last year and a decrease in letter mail. He then cited the cost of the new wage agreement—360 million euro—as a pretext for the cuts while at the same time promising a dividend of 2.1 billion euro for shareholders!
“Anyone who makes decisions like that should have to do our job,” said Tanja, a parcel deliverer in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. “It may be that letter volumes are declining, but parcels have certainly increased. And we ‘poor bastards’ often have to lug 25 kg parcels up to the third or fourth floor.”
In her opinion, “It is not enough for the government to lower the maximum weight to 20 kg, as has now been announced. As long as the mountains of parcels continue to grow and our delivery area continues to expand, we urgently need more staff. But who will work this job if it is not better paid?” Several young colleagues of hers only kept the job for a short time: “As soon as they find something better, they’re gone again.”
“At the Post it’s all about profit. And if you’re poor, you stay poor,” said A. Klein, also a mail carrier from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. “Just look at what a measly pension we end up with!” She reports that her colleagues are resigning from Verdi by the dozen.
Many thousands of Germany’s 170,000 letter, parcel and postal workers took part in warning strikes in recent months. However, the Verdi leadership agreed behind closed doors to a two-year contract that provides for a zero pay rise for the first three months of this year and a two percent raise starting in April, which amounts to a cut in real wages. A further three percent raise is scheduled for a year from now. Of the three additional vacation days demanded, only one will be granted. Only those who have been with the company for 16 years will receive a second additional vacation day.
In this way, the harsh, poorly paid conditions at the German Post are set in stone and exacerbated by the job cuts. In order to force this through despite anger among postal workers and to paralyze their resistance, the service union Verdi carried out the manoeuvre of a members’ survey, which it subsequently treated as a ballot. Many postal workers, however, were never asked at all.
Bernd reported: “Several of my colleagues complained that they weren’t asked at all and weren’t able to vote.” This was also confirmed by the Post-associated driver from the Bergisch region. There was no vote held at his company at all.
He supports the initiative for action committees in the companies, he said. At Post AG, it’s all about “saving, saving, saving. We drive around here with old cars and old bicycles.” The latter are now finally being scrapped and new ones are gradually being purchased, he said. This is long overdue. “The Group treats its younger colleagues extremely badly. They don’t dare to treat us older ones that way, and rightly so!” says the experienced postal worker. He himself only has a few more years until he retires. “But the young people will have to work here even longer. A lot has to change here.”
The policy of wage theft and job cuts, which Verdi is helping to organize, is directly linked to the insane rearmament plans of the incoming German government, a coalition of conservatives (CDU/CSU) and social democrats (SPD), which wants to incur up to one trillion euro in debt for this purpose. Their policy will cost tens of billions of euro every year for interest and repayments alone, which will then be squeezed out of the working class. This is the background to the miserable wage agreements of recent days and weeks. The trade union leadership is an accomplice and the executive organ of the government.
On the union’s homepage, Verdi chairman Frank Werneke described the so-called “special infrastructure fund” of 500 billion euro, which serves to prepare society for war, as a “real opportunity,” and supports the rearmament of the Bundeswehr (the German military).
The Verdi boss describes the “discussions about higher defense spending in Germany and Europe” as “understandable. Europe must be able to defend itself, the Bundeswehr must be operational.” Werneke had already committed to keeping wage settlements low as part of the Concerted Action 2022 agreement, in cooperation with companies and the government. A year later, he ensured that the service union supported German rearmament at the last Verdi congress.
Several Verdi members expressed horror and concern that the union leadership was actively supporting Germany’s rearming for war. Silke from Hesse said: “People I know are now very worried, either because they themselves have someone in the Bundeswehr or because they fear that their sons could be drafted.”
Bernd, the postman from Saarland, is also critical of German war policy, although he “doesn’t want to speak out against the Bundeswehr.” But he is strictly against the delivery of the Taurus missile system to Ukraine. “Then we’ll be openly at war with Russia,” he said. “I am absolutely against that; it would be a disaster.”
The goals of the Verdi leadership are based on the goals of the Board of Management, the shareholders and the government. They are aimed at making the global DHL Post Group “lean and efficient” and are intended to save one billion euro per year. As CEO Meyer said: “Dividend continuity and shareholder returns are a high priority for us.”
Our “priority” as the Post Action Committee is focused on very different goals: For us, the lives, health and working conditions of employees and their families are more important than the profits of shareholders and the super-rich. In the fight for these goals, we do not see allies among the highly paid trade union bureaucrats, still less in the captains of industry and government politicians. Our allies are our colleagues in other workplaces, industries, countries and around the world.
Recently, a Canadian postal worker wrote to us, whose union last winter sold out a four-week strike demanding job security and wage increases at Canada Post. He wrote: “The unions have given up on the working class so completely that they consider us all imbeciles who will believe any lie that they dish out!” He went on to write:
We postal workers deliver mail, parcels and admail every single day, and we postal workers are discovering our social power. If we break from the nationalism and corporatism of the unions, we have a real opportunity to organize with other sections of workers and lead an international working class revolt against capitalist exploitation and war, and spearhead the fight for better jobs and living conditions in Canada, United States, Mexico, Germany and beyond.
Join the online meeting of Action Committees on Thursday, April 10, at 7 p.m., send a Whatsapp message to +49 163-3378 340 or register using the form below this article!