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Striking postal workers in February 2023: the demand was for a 15 percent rise.

On March 4, Deutsche Post DHL Group and the Verdi union leadership announced a new contract covering more than 170,000 employees. Then, only two days later, it was announced that 8,000 jobs would be cut in the mail and parcel business by the end of the year.

A membership ballot on the contract is to be conducted from March 10 to 28. We call on all Verdi members at Deutsche Post to vote decisively “No”! Reject the sellout, defend every job and set up rank-and-file action committees in all sorting and distribution centres that can act independently of Verdi.

The new contract is a foul sellout that seeks to fob off sorters, letter and parcel deliverers and other postal workers with a reduction in real wages. The tough, poorly paid conditions are being made permanent and exacerbated by job cuts.

The agreement initially provides for a three-month pay freeze from January to March 2025. A wage increase of just 2 percent is planned from April 1, 2025–but 7 percent was demanded. A further 3 percent is not planned until a year later, on 1 April 2026. The contract will run for 24 months rather than the 12 months demanded.

This is nowhere near enough to compensate for inflation, which averaged 5.9 percent in 2023, 2.2 per cent last year (2024) and rose again to 2.3 percent in January 2025. Whereby “average inflation” does not realistically reflect the price increases that workers have to contend with, because the prices of food, petrol and rent remain permanently high. In addition, compulsory contribution rates for health and long-term care insurance have risen further for wage earners. While the workload for postal workers has increased, they have had less and less in their wallets for years.

Verdi is now stressing that from 2026, there will be one extra day’s holiday for everyone and a further day from the 16th year of employment. But they fail to mention that a great many postal workers do not yet enjoy 30 days’ holiday a year because they have either not been with Deutsche Post for 13 years or only work part-time–many precisely because of the high physical demands of the job. Overtime and extra shifts at the weekend are all the more common due to widespread staff shortages. The new contract, together with the job cuts, will only exacerbate this situation.

Deutsche Post is trying to justify the poor outcome with a lie: allegedly, postal workers received a hefty wage increase two years ago. HR director Thomas Ogilvie speaks of a “very high wage agreement in 2023,” with Verdi secretary Andrea Kocsis not contradicting him. This is simply a lie: in 2023, a good result could have been achieved if the union had not stalled the already agreed unlimited strike.

In January 2023, Verdi had been forced to set a demand of a 15 percent pay rise because of the huge anger over poor conditions postal workers faced during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic crisis. On the one hand, the postal service was one of the biggest profiteers of the crisis. On the other hand, workers were breaking their backs on the growing flood of parcels, while their wages lagged far behind inflation. Verdi members have bitter memories: 86 percent of them voted in favour of an unlimited strike, but the Verdi leadership immediately halted the ballot and, with whitewashing and lies, nevertheless pushed through practically the same offer that had already been rejected.

In the end, postal workers received a monthly wage increase of €340 gross–but only for two years, and only in the second year. Calculated over the year, this was a maximum of eight percent for the lowest wage group–far below the demanded and necessary 15 percent. In the first year of the contract, there was only a one-off non-consolidated payment that did not sustainably improve wages. In the final analysis, Verdi has ensured that the poor working conditions at Deutsche Post have been enshrined.

Now, Verdi wants to impose a cut in real wages on workers. This policy of wage robbery is directly linked to the insane rearmament plans of the new federal government. The Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD) want to take on debts of up to one trillion euros to make Germany “war-ready.” The interest and capital repayments alone would cost tens of billions of euros each year, which will have to be squeezed out of the working class. That is why public sector employees and those working for publicly owned companies are to pay with wage cuts and layoffs.

Verdi supports this warmongering policy and sees its role as ensuring the necessary job cuts and wage reductions are implemented to pay for it. It has already committed itself to this in the context of the “

Wages, social gains and jobs can only be defended in a rebellion against the unions and their policy of “social partnership.”

German trade unions and employers conspire against the working class in a new round of the “Concerted Action”

” together with the corporations and the government. At its last 

Verdi’s federal congress fully supported the escalation of the war in Ukraine and the horrendous rearmament programme for Germany’s armed forces. The union undertook to ensure that the billions this requires come at workers’ expense.

Verdi union supports German government’s pro-war policies

, Verdi also endorsed the government’s rearmament policy.

That is why the union has refused to organise a serious strike in the present contract dispute and is now trying to enforce a bad agreement with all the tricks at its disposal. It is collaborating closely with company management and the government. Andrea Kocsis has not only been the chief negotiator for 18 years, but she is also deputy chair of the DHL supervisory board, which oversees the management board and “works with it in a spirit of trust,” as every report from this body states.

On February 14, a good week before the federal election, Kocsis theatrically rejected the offer (1.8 percent plus 2.0 percent for 27 months), calling it “completely inadequate!” Today it is almost as bad, with only a two-tenths of a percent improvement in the first year–and Kocsis describes this as a “decent result.” No wonder: she herself draws over a quarter of a million euros from her supervisory board fees alone, in addition to her Verdi salary and further emoluments from the other posts she occupies, of course.

Verdi never had any intention of engaging in a real fight. It carefully kept the token strikes separate from those of public services, such bus drivers at 

There is a direct link between our industrial dispute and the rapid changes in world politics.

Break through Verdi union’s stalling tactics at Berlin transit provider BVG! Prepare an indefinite strike!

 and other workers. It only ever called out a small part of the workforce at a time and ensured that postal operations were never seriously threatened. Only a maximum of 12 percent of the daily volume of letter and parcel items were affected.

We, the Postal Workers Action Committee, call on you to organise independently of Verdi at all post offices and delivery bases. Elect colleagues you trust to control the membership ballot. Place no trust in the Verdi officials! All details of the ballot must be disclosed, and real industrial action must be prepared!

, the needs of the workers and their families must take precedence over the profit interests of the stock market speculators and their lackeys, the government politicians and union officials.

, the fight is an international one: our allies are not the highly paid union officials, and certainly not the board of management. Our allies are our brothers and sisters who toil in postal services across Europe and around the world. The DHL Group alone has nearly 600,000 employees worldwide.

We also need to reach out to contract workers and our colleagues in subcontracted and other logistics operations, whether at DHL, GLS, UPS, Hermes, Amazon or elsewhere. It is not just about rejecting a bad collective agreement and defending jobs. It is also about stopping a murderous pro-war policy. The government is realigning society for war, and Verdi is making sure that the working class pays the price for it–don’t let it!

Join our Postal Workers Action Committee, which was formed two years ago. Register by sending a Whatsapp message to the mobile number +49 163-3378 340 or using the following form.

The Deutsche Post DHL Group and Verdi union leadership have agreed cuts in real wages for 170,000 workers, and the destruction of 8,000 jobs in letter and parcel delivery.

Vote “No” to the proposed contract at Deutsche Post! Build the Postal Workers Action Committee!

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