Image: DPD Austria
Delivery people who work there through subcontractors complain about extreme working hours and poor pay, reports the standard on Thursday with reference to several “hundred pages of documents from the logistics center Kalsdorf near Graz (Depot 0628)”.
According to this, a deliverer worked an average of 15 hours in April last year, up to 17 hours on several days – and he covered up to 370 kilometers a day. He earned around 5.20 euros per hour net this month. As reported by the standard, the delivery staff complained about long working hours without breaks, unpaid overtime, outstanding salaries, wage dumping and social fraud as well as dubious contractual structures. If a deliverer delivers a package incorrectly or too late, or does not keep his car clean, he has to pay a fine of 50 euros.
Start of work at 4:30 a.m
According to the records, deliverers start as early as four-thirty, and even earlier at Christmas. First he scans the packages and puts them in his van. He doesn’t leave until eight o’clock. A deliverer has to make between 100 and 350 stops per day, one is quoted in the “Standard”. The deliverers work for a good 15 subcontractors in the DPD depot, with employees reporting similar conditions at these companies.
There are many indications that DPD knows about the conditions, reports the “Standard”: “DPD has all the information from which the working conditions of the drivers can be easily derived.” In addition, the Austrian Postal Market Act stipulates that statistics must be collected, among other things, on the volume of shipments, posting and delivery times, employees and subcontractors, and transmitted to the Rundfunk- und Telekom Regulations GmbH.
As is usual in the industry, DPD also works with transport partners, explains DPD when asked by “Standard”. The allegations cannot be “understood” and are “strictly rejected”. “Fair and partnership-based cooperation with all our business partners is extremely important to us. We pay very close attention to compliance with all applicable legal regulations and check them both regularly and closely by internal and external specialists,” confirms DPD.
Source: Nachrichten
