Post office
A post office is an acceptance and advice center for postal and financial services (letter, parcel, express, Postident, etc.) Both Deutsche Post and Postbank operate post offices: The Postbank Finance Center (two-digit branch number) emerged from the former post offices ; Post branches in retail (three-digit branch number) are operated by a contractual partner (external service provider) on behalf of Deutsche Post AG .
The “new post” in the EU
In the area of the EU , the postal administrations, which have hitherto been mostly state-owned, are subject to various savings programs and are also - if not already done - to be largely privatized in the next few years, with IPOs also planned. The agendas of individual post offices - especially in rural areas - are taken over by retailers and private small businesses , or left to other areas or to free competition .
In the course of the postal reform in the mid-1990s, a wave of post offices closed. Since then, so-called post offices have existed in retail . The owner of his business concludes a partner contract and receives, in addition to a certain basic remuneration (of less than 1000 EUR for single postal agencies), various commissions that make up both the actual turnover and profit / loss. In the absence of relevant specialist knowledge on the part of the partners and their employees, who work for low wages, the quality level has fallen sharply. Nevertheless, the employees affected have to serve significantly more customers in less time.
For the postal workers themselves, this development over the past few decades has essentially resulted in three phases:
- initially "all-round official" (from letter and parcel service to telecommunications and financial services),
- later specialization and takeover of new services,
- and now extensive transition to the private sector .
At the same time, forms of trade union organization are disintegrating , and income losses are feared, against which strike threats have been directed since around 2003 .
In most countries, privatization goes hand in hand with a division of corporate divisions , e.g. For example, in Germany the Deutsche Bundespost was divided into the following corporate divisions, roughly corresponding to the tasks listed above: Deutsche Post AG , Deutsche Telekom AG and Deutsche Postbank AG .
Historical
Post offices from 1875 to 1989
The Reichspost was under the direction of the Reichspostamt as the management authority.
When the Reichspost was founded (1871), in addition to the post office, there were the postal administrations , which emerged from the postal expeditions of the 1st class of the North German Federal Post, the postal expeditions of the 2nd class and the newly created postal agencies, which were mostly formed from small postal expeditions of the 2nd class.
Since January 5, 1875 a distinction has been made between
- Post offices, First Class, a Postmaster as chief
- Post offices 2nd class ( postmaster ), previously postal administrations and
- Post offices III. Class (postal administrator), previously postal expeditions.
In the course of deliveries overland, post offices were added in 1881 . In 1927 branch post offices, mostly former first class post offices, were established. On January 1, 1927, the rural postal service began. A post office was always responsible for the subordinate post offices.
On January 1, 1959, the Deutsche Bundespost published the guidelines on the organization of post offices (V) . With the post offices a distinction was made between the post office with administrative service - Postamt (V) - and the post office. - The post office (V) was an independent office, a lower federal authority. It was headed by a chief officer. The designation post office (V) was only used to differentiate between internal business transactions. In terms of its position and functions, the post office essentially corresponded to the previous branch post office . An operations manager was responsible for service at the post office; as a superior, he was authorized to issue instructions and supervise the staff employed at the post office. The organization and legal relationships of the post offices and post offices have not been changed.
Federal Republic of Germany
In the flat countryside, deliveries were often made by bike , and in remote farmsteads in the mountains, sometimes only to places closer to the valley. This topic has found and continues to be represented in various ways in literature and film .
In the 1950s, the motorization of the post offices began, initially often with mopeds , later with signal yellow small cars of the Fiat or Steyr-Puch types , and about two decades ago with larger cars, some of which took over heavier mail pieces up to about 5 kg instead of parcel buses .
Until the 1960s, the post offices in Germany were called "Postanstalt", while in Austria they were called the post office for short. The smallest post offices in their area (e.g. the village and its surroundings) were responsible for morning deliveries (see deliverers ) and mostly for delivering cash (payment transactions or pensions ). For reasons of organization and security , money mail carriers were sometimes used, and from the 1970s onwards private companies were also used for larger sums of money .
As a post office (abbreviation PA) was to postal reform in the German language a local office of the post referred to in a public officially rented buildings or rooms is housed. The term stood for an administrative unit when a postal facility was responsible for certain administrative activities (such as billing) of other postal facilities.
