WRITTEN QUESTION E-1588/98

by Ernesto Caccavale (UPE) to the Commission

(25 May 1998)

Subject: Postal Market: company policy inimical to equal opportunities

Postal Market, the leading Italian mail-order firm, which for the last four years has been owned by the German Otto Versand group, has for some time been implementing a staff-cutting and restructuring plan whereby as many as five telephone centres in southern Italy (Bari, Cagliari, Naples, Rome, and Catania) are to be closed down and over a hundred women workers will consequently be dismissed.

The company has thus totally disregarded the undertakings it gave to the Italian Ministry of Labour on 15 May 1997 when it was awarded a 'solidarity contract' and made a verbal promise not to cut jobs at its southern Italian base of operations. Not only has it failed to honour the agreement to consolidate its presence in southern Italy, as opposed to other existing locations, but it has even gone so far as to infringe the entitlement to equal opportunities, especially since virtually all of the workers now receiving redundancy payments and awaiting new jobs are women, who already suffer disadvantages on the labour market. What is more, the company offices in question, according to internal sources, were making a profit.

The Commission:

1. Does it not therefore believe that it should intervene to ensure that agreements are properly observed in those parts of Europe affected by severe employment problems?

2. What steps will it take to uphold protection of equal opportunities, a principle which the Community should be particularly anxious to safeguard?

Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission

(24 July 1998)

Article 2 of Council Directive 75/129/EEC(1) amended by Council Directive 92/56/EEC(2) on collective redundancies requires that an employer contemplating collective redundancies, shall begin consultations with the workers' representatives in good time with a view to reaching an agreement. These consultations shall, at least, cover ways of avoiding collective redundancies or reducing the number of workers affected, and of mitigating the consequences by recourse to accompanying social measures aimed, inter alia, at aid for redeploying or retraining workers made redundant. According to Article 3 of the Directive, employers shall notify the authorities in writing of any projected collective redundancies. Furthermore, Article 6 of the Directive requires that Member States shall ensure that judicial or administrative procedures for the enforcement of obligations under the Directive are available to the workers' representatives and/or workers.

Provided that the situation in question falls within the scope of Council Directive 94/45/EEC(3) on European works councils, the information and consultation requirements of that Directive will also apply.

However, it is within the competence of the national authorities to intervene if the provisions of the national legislation implementing the above mentioned directives or the principle of equal treatment between men and women are violated, provided that national legislation is in conformity with the directives in question. The Commission is currently undertaking a thorough examination of the national legislation implementing Directive 92/56/EEC in Member States. An implementation report will be published in the near future.

Moreover, the Commission is also monitoring the implementation to domestic law in Member States, of the first directive specific to the postal sector - European Parliament and Council Directive 97/67/EC of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service(4). This framework Directive represents a first acquis communautaire and 10 February 1999 is the deadline for its complete integration in the Community.

(1) OJ L 48, 22.2.1975.

(2) OJ L 245, 26.8.1992.

(3) OJ L 254, 30.9.1994.

(4) OJ L 15, 21.1.1998.