In April you denounced the situation of “chaos” in Correos in Vitoria-Gasteiz. What was the situation?

As a result of the zero-hiring policy, the number of employees is too small to be able to carry out the existing workload, and the casualties are not replaced. It is impossible for employees to distribute all the existing shipments, and they inevitably prioritize some things and neglect others. It is the bosses who decide what is prioritized: mainly the shipments of the multinational packaging giants that we are all familiar with. The letters, on the other hand, are abandoned or left for the end, although they are often very important for the citizens.

In the letter that doesn't arrive, you still mentioned medical appointments, Treasury appointments, or court citations. This can cause great harm to the population.

We know, for example, that many women have missed their mammogram appointment because they haven’t received the appointment letter or have received it late. This has caused Christ’s harm to these women, of course, but also to Osakidetza. This may be the most serious damage we have known, but there are more.

What can the public do about it?

When this happens, it is important that the injured party file a claim to put pressure on the company to take responsibility for the situation and hire more employees. Complaints can be filed at any office or via the Internet.

It's been a month and a half since your accusations. Has the situation improved since then?

We no longer have thousands and thousands of letters accumulated, but not because the management has taken action, but because some of the workers who were on leave or on vacation have returned to work. But at any time we will be in the same situation again: if some casualties coincide, during the summer holidays, because there will be fewer workers at work, or around Christmas, when shipments increase a lot.

I live in the Old Town, for two months I haven’t received the weekly LUZ, and one day I received seven magazines in the mailbox at a time. Has that become normal?

They shouldn’t be normal, but they can happen. The Old Town mailman was on leave for half a year without being replaced. But it can be repeated in any neighborhood of Vitoria-Gasteiz, and it is also happening in some towns of Álava: Guardian, Agurainen, Laudion, Amurrio. The number of workers is too small, imagine that there are four workers and two are on sick leave, the workload is the same. What is done in these cases is to divide some villages in one day, others in another day, and to accumulate shipments that are not prioritized: letters, appointments for the doctor or the Treasury, invoices, etc.

Since when does this happen in Correos?

The situation comes from afar, but it has deteriorated considerably since Pedro Saura took office as president of Correos in Madrid in December 2023. From the first day he ordered a policy of reduction of expenses, arguing that the company is deficient, and it has been noticeable in hiring. The leaders here tell us that they ask for new hires, but they tell them from Madrid that there is no money.

I had a friend working at Correos who said that almost everything he distributed was Amazon’s parcel.

It is prioritizing parcels for certain specific companies. Most of it is from Amazon or other large multinationals that have a contract with Correos. I think they're gonna be very juicy contracts. These packages are clearly prioritized, in any distribution center you can see the boss distributing tasks accordingly.

Isn’t there a conflict between the public service that Correos should provide and this business vision?

The postal service is a citizen's right, and Correos is a public company that was created to enforce this right: Correos is a public service in the form of public health or education, so it doesn’t have to be profitable. This is legally the case and Correos refuses to perform this function. I am not saying that we should not distribute these packages, but it cannot be a priority. There is a lot of competition in the postal service market, Correos has entered into this and is totally skewing what its essence would need.

Does the mercantilist approach also affect the working conditions of workers?

The non-recruitment policy imposes a workload on workers. Their leaders are pushing the workers to do the work of two or three, and these leaders are squeezing them a lot at the same time from Madrid. The environment is under a lot of pressure.

And the salaries?

This is outrageous. We haven’t signed a labor agreement in over a decade. In the last fifteen years we have lost an average of more than 200 euros, the base salary is about 1,200 euros net. On the other hand, they make many part-time contracts, part-time, to work only on the weekend...

The new Directorate initially announced its intention to renew the work agreement, we welcomed it with hope, but they have already begun to cheat. A framework agreement was signed a few months ago between the management and the main unions, CCOO, UGT, CSIF and Sindicato Libre. They'll take that to the negotiating table, so there's no real negotiation with the other unions. And what they have agreed, in short, is the magic word, flexibility: to reduce working hours depending on the season and the workload (for example, in summer), or the possibility of increasing it (for example, around Christmas); functional mobility to change the employee’s position when the management wants it; physical mobility to allow the distributor to change places. They want to impose all this by using incentives: if you accept it they will complement your salary slightly, but if you do not, you will continue with your basic salary of misery.

You have made some mobilizations of workers, will there be more?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We are encouraging the broadest possible union of trade unions to deepen the struggle. We will mobilize in the Basque Country, but also in Madrid along with several national unions. The LAB will put all its forces in place to stop this new offensive against workers, citizens and the public service.