Finland's post office reports falling sales, employees walk

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Finland's post office reports falling sales, employees walk out

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Nov 2 Finland's state-owned mail and delivery company Posti Group reported on Monday falling sales amid declining demand for letter deliveries, and its operations were disrupted as hundreds of employees walked out in a labour dispute.

Posti, seen as a possible privatisation target for the government in the coming years, is facing increasing competition in parcel delivery from DHL and UPS, while at the same time digitalisation has resulted in a drop of delivered letters and magazines.

Third-quarter sales fell 14 percent from a year ago to 374 million euros ($412 million) while core operating profit edged up to 10 million euros from 7 million euros a year earlier.

In Russia, where Posti mainly operates in logistics services, its core operating result fell into loss on lower volumes and a weaker rouble.

In order to improve efficiency, Posti earlier this year said it would close 77 post offices and cut more than 300 jobs. It also sold its loss-making Scandinavian freight delivery business to Denmark's NTG.

Posti's collective agreement with its employees expired last week and negotiations on a new one have hit a stalemate. On Monday, hundreds of employees took part in walkouts, protesting against what they say is the employer's plan to take on temporary agency workers during staff strikes. Posti employees have refused to train the agency workers.

"A major challenge for us is that our collective agreement dates back in the time when Posti was the only service provider," CEO Heikki Malinen said.

Posti has been tipped as a possible privatisation target for the centre-right government which said last month it would sell shares in state-owned companies worth about 1.6 billion euros by 2018 to help finance its growth projects.

"The company has reacted belatedly with its efficiency programmes ... It would be a lot easier for Posti to define its focus in a credible way if it was in private hands," said Jukka Oksaharju, strategist at Nordnet brokerage.

($1 = 0.9079 euros) (Reporting by Anna Ercanbrack and Jussi Rosendahl; Editing by Mark Potter)

[feduppostie]

That all sounds depressingly familiar :-(