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Scarce in some areas: post office
Photo: Christof Stache/ AP
The municipal umbrella organizations have criticized the lack of post offices in rural areas after the Federal Network Agency identified gaps in the post office network in rural areas.
Accordingly, there are 140 unoccupied mandatory locations.
For this reason, the municipal associations called on the logistics group to maintain the infrastructure.
"Even in the age of digitization, providing the population with postal services has not lost its importance," said the President of the District Council, Reinhard Sager, to the "Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland".
Branches and postal service providers play an important role with regard to parcels and parcels, the volume of which has increased significantly in recent years.
"Postal services are part of the basic equipment of services of general interest," emphasized Sager.
The deputy managing director of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, Uwe Zimmermann, also agreed with the criticism of the post office. "The lack of post offices in rural areas is definitely an issue," he said.
It is important that services of general interest are guaranteed: "We expect Swiss Post to provide the necessary infrastructure." Last but not least, companies are also dependent on Swiss Post.
The Post had emphasized that it covered “about 99 percent of all mandatory locations with branches”.
At the locations where this is not the case, "there are often no longer any retail outlets, so there are no shops that could offer universal postal services on our behalf".
Deutsche Post is the only service provider in Germany to ensure that the population is supplied with letters across the board.
It is subject to regulation by the Federal Network Agency.
There must be at least 12,000 stationary facilities nationwide.
The ordinance for the postal service stipulates, among other things, that there must be at least one location in all municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants.
To do this, Swiss Post uses service providers such as grocery stores or kiosks that offer services such as the sale of stamps or the acceptance of parcels.
According to the Post, there are around 13,000 partner branches, around 10,500 DHL parcel shops and 11,000 Packstations in Germany.
High participation in warning strikes in distribution centers
The Verdi union had called for strikes in all postal and parcel centers on Thursday evening after the second round of collective bargaining for around 160,000 employees ended without a result.
More work stoppages are to follow.
Verdi is demanding a 15 percent increase in salary and an increase in training allowances of 200 euros per month for each year of training.
»Participation was already very good during the night.
A lot of colleagues are taking part," reported Thomas Großstück, Verdi spokesman for North Rhine-Westphalia, early on Friday morning.
Exact participation figures are not yet available.
The majority of Verdi members at Swiss Post have a low income and cannot cope with real wage losses, the employee representatives argue.
The company denies the claim.
The assumption that wage increases could be passed on through price increases is wrong.
The Post refers to the price regulation for the letter and parcel business in Germany.
According to the spokesman, strike locations were set up as contact points for employees in Dortmund and Cologne.
Several hundred employees are expected at these meeting places during the day.
Larger demonstrations in front of the distribution centers are not initially planned.
kig/AFP/dpa/Reuters
