A rally at the call of the first union in Switzerland, Unia, was held Monday morning in front of the GeoPost headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine), including the subsidiary DPD, specialist in parcel delivery , is accused of systematic violations of the law in this country.
"
It is a scandal as we have rarely seen in Switzerland,
" denounced Roman Künzer Fögele, head of the logistics and transport branch of the Unia union.
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He accuses DPD, a subsidiary of GeoPost, itself owned by the La Poste group, of imposing hellish rates on its deliverers in Switzerland without paying overtime, of inflicting arbitrary wage deductions or of not respecting the law on night work.
In Switzerland, “
800 delivery people work for DPD
” where it is the second largest player in the sector, explained Roman Künzer Fögele, and “
they are all employed by subcontractors
”.
According to him, there are about 80 subcontractors who hire 10 to 15 people each.
Unia says it has interviewed "
intensively
" 25% of these drivers, or 200 people.
"
We have seen extraordinary things
", with working days "
from twelve to fourteen hours with no overtime paid,
" he said.
Unia produced a 36-page report detailing DPD's practices.
“
Workdays from 5:30 am to 5:00 pm without breaks are the rule,
” it says.
"
Unia does not know any driver who receives from his boss a count of the hours worked at the end of the month
", writes the union.
Delivery people are often required to make 200 stops per day and work 70-hour weeks while their contracts provide for a weekly working time of 42 to 44 hours.
"
Many of the drivers who work for DPD are young, they are between 25 and 30 years old and already have significant physical but also psychological problems
", explains Roman Künzer Fögele.
The delivery men made 13 demands to improve working conditions and correct abuses.
“
So far, no one has managed to get in touch with anyone from management in Switzerland,
” Künzer Fögele denounced.
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"
The company reacted with a violent anti-union campaign where delivery men were told not to speak to us, under penalty of being made redundant,
" he described, referring to extremely rare practices in Switzerland.
He asks the La Poste group in France to put pressure on the Swiss management of DPD to "
find a solution
" and open negotiations.
The CGT, present at the rally, announced that it also wanted to conduct an investigation into the working conditions of deliverers at DPD or Chronopost.
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