Many letters have accumulated significant delays at the moment, in particular in certain departments.
If the number of letters sent tends to decrease in recent years, sending and receiving mail remains an essential in the daily life of the French. However, some of them have been facing an empty box for several days. According to information from RMCat least 1.2 million letters are late. Some letters remain blocked for a few days, or even several weeks, while La Poste normally has three days to send a letter to its recipient. Certain letters to Santa Claus, for example, would never have left the containers of unrealized letters.
Different explanations are advanced. La Poste has deleted 20,000 jobs in four years in the mail service and several sorting centers have closed. Management defends itself by ensuring faces strong personnel absences, caused in particular by the flu epidemic, to address for addressing and transport. La Poste attests to have called on reinforcements and that it is only temporary.
In addition, employees go on strike to denounce working conditions on sorting platforms. This is particularly the case in Gironde, a department very impacted by delays. “The current state is a delay in the order of a million letters, up to a month and a half. Memory, I do not believe I have already known such a situation,” explains Willy Dhellemmes, representing union south ptt gironde, at RMC.
According to the union, management would also prioritize the distribution of advertising mail. “Due to the lack of personnel at the peak and in mail centers, the closings of the pecks, the prioritization of the pub on mail and precariousness, we have been witnessing a disaster for several months!”, Summarizes the union on his page Facebook this January 22.
Within the Industrial Platform Mail of Cestas, which sorts and sends mail in Dordogne, Les Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Gironde, the mail remains blocked and accumulates. A delay in the routing of folds is also observed in the Vaucluse, the Marne, the Calvados, in Ille-et-Vilaine, in the Alpes-Maritimes or in the Bouches-du-Rhône.