Postal workers protest possible job losses

About 1,000 postal workers demonstrated in Brussels yesterday at the office of acting economy minister Johan Vande Lanotte (SP.A). Workers fear that the national post office bpost will lose out on a contract to deliver newspapers, which would result in at least 2,500 jobs lost.

“When it comes to quality, we are competitive, but when it comes to price, there is a problem,” said Jean-Pierre Nijns of the socialist union ACOD.

“Pseudo self-employed will take on postal work for peanuts,” claimed Marc De Mulder of the liberal union VSOA.

The Belgian postal market was liberalised in 2011. When the EU allowed bpost to receive government funding for a number of services it delivers, it demanded that the contract to distribute newspapers and magazines be put to public tender.

A shortlist of candidates for this contract includes BD, which distributes print publicity door to door, and AMP, a news agents supplier. A decision on the contract by the federal government is expected by the end of the year. The new contract will start in 2016.