No going Dutch here as company keeps its Netherlands monopol

[TrueBlueTerrier]

No going Dutch here as company keeps its Netherlands monopoly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/2 ... royal-mail" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



TNT, the Dutch company that wants to seize a key holding in Royal Mail, has been successfully opposing the opening-up of its own domestic market while campaigning for full competition in Britain.

The group has won government backing in the Netherlands for its stance that 50% of local postal services should be retained as a TNT monopoly until the British and German governments make their markets more accessible.

A spokeswoman for the company said last night that even though the UK is formally open to outright competition, VAT payments on mail delivered by foreign operators left them in a disadvantageous position. "We are in favour of liberalisation but there needs to be a level playing field for everyone and that is not the case [in Germany and Britain]."

And despite its own stranglehold over the Dutch market, TNT has told investors that its mail volumes in the Netherlands are expected to show an increased rate of decline.

The wider TNT group has been struggling financially over the last 12 months, reporting a 37% fall in full-year profits to €716m, and has unveiled plans to "aggressively pursue" a €400m cost-saving programme.

The share price has plunged by two-thirds from a recent high of €36 and as recently as last summer, the operator was being talked of as a takeover target for rival FedEx of America.

TNT, which is the only firm that has publicly stated its desire to buy into Royal Mail, started life as an Australian trucking company, TNT - originally Thomas Nationwide Transport - and expanded into Britain in the late 1970s.

The company attracted the negative attentions of the trade union movement in the UK when its lorries drove through printers' picket lines outside the Wapping headquarters of Rupert Murdoch's News International media group.

While offering logistics and express parcel deliveries in Britain, TNT was acquired in 1992 by the Canadian post office only to be sold four years later to KPN, the privatised Dutch postal service.

The combined group has gradually expanded its postal business in Britain - where it now handles 1.8bn items a year - Germany and Italy as those European nations slowly dismantled the traditional state-owned monopolies that used to control those markets.

The Dutch-based operator has used the same complaints against rivals such as Deutsche Post of Germany which have invaded its own postal sector as the ones used against TNT by the unions at the Royal Mail.

"We don't want to mirror the very low pay that competitors pay their workers," said TNT board member Harry Koorstra back in 2007. TNT was then freezing wages and talking about cutting 7,000 jobs ahead of limited competition being introduced in the Netherlands.But after the company moved into Germany, TNT threatened to shut up shop if it was not allowed a special exemption from a new local minimum wage for postal workers in that country.

[POSTMAN]

Also when they moved into the German mail market TNT helped get a court ruling that the German minimum wage for postal workers was too high,the minimum hourly wage of €9.80 was wanted by the Germans,TNT at the moment pay their workers over there €7.50 an hour.

[pocky20]

so realy what they wont do they want us to makes me sick :mfo