Rouen's station office closes its counters and sets up in a bar

Monday, September 30, 2019, the post office in the Rouen station district (Seine-Maritime) will close its doors, and its services will be transferred to the Café de la Gare, on the other side of the street.Why does La Poste closes her office in such a frequented place?And what will be the services offered in this new postal relay?

A postal relay in a cafe

Located opposite the current post office, it is the café de la Gare that will take over.From September 30, therefore, it is here that people will be able to deposit and remove their letters and packages.

"We recruited one more person a few weeks ago, we did not have to have to but we thought we were going to need it," explains Véronique Dubos, who holds the establishment with her husband.She accepted the Post's competence transfer proposal at the start of 2019 for an upcoming implementation;"This will allow us to have a plurality of services, and to prevent customers from deserting the neighborhood because of this closure."For this urban relay service, La Poste spends 300 euros per month and provides the necessary equipment (a counter, a smartphone to raise parcel bars, a balance for mail shipping, etc.) to merchants.

With this transformation, La Poste claims greater accessibility for customers, going from 37 hours of opening per week to 56 hours per week, but also a way of "adapting to the specific needs of customers and their rhythms of life».

An inevitable closure?

No substantial dismissal to this closure will intervene, certify the employees of the station office: so far mobile between three post offices, they will only work in the two offices on rue Jeanne-d'Arc andof the prefecture.For two office employees, its closure seemed obvious: "Look around you [no client on Friday at 2 pm, note], it's always like that, there is almost no one.By being here, we have the feeling of being put in the closet. "

For unions, this closure is the result of post office policy."In this office, there has been a decrease in the amplitude of opening hours, so it obviously generates fewer passages ... So that legitimizes the closure.This is a vicious circle, "according to Bruno Venuat, of the CGT La Poste union.

He also deplores the impact that this has on the poorest populations, which according to him very frequently use postal services and can hardly move elsewhere."It will no longer be a two -speed position but at a speed, leaving people on the side."Employees of the station office add: "It is true that La Poste did not think of the elderly in the district in big difficulty, who are at the postal bank and will have to go to the office 550 meters below, on rue Jeanne-Tarch ”, because the Gare coffee does not offer this banking service.

To challenge the reform of the pension plan, but also "the disorganization of the distribution and the closure of post offices", the CGT, the FAPT and the CGT departmental union call postal workers and employees to meet on Tuesday, September 242019 from 9 am, in front of La Poste management, in Rouen.

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