Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
DHL annual account show accidents are on the rise

COURIER company DHL’s senior manager “should be ashamed” of himself for mistreating staff who have delivered huge profits for the company, GMB said yesterday.

The firm’s 2017 annual report showed its earnings before interest and taxes were up 7.2 per cent to over €3.7 billion (£3.3bn) while chairman Frank Appel’s basic annual salary went up to just shy of £2 million.

Mr Appel also stands to trouser more than £5m over the next four years in “performance-related remuneration.”

But the report also revealed an increase in the accident rate in 2017, with 4.4 workplace accidents per 200,000 hours worked, up from four in 2016.

It follows threats of industrial action by staff earlier this year after DHL/UK Mail sacked 20 drivers who had refused to accept a £2,000 pay cut.

Their union GMB said drivers at depots across Britain were “frogmarched” into offices and told to sign a contract incorporating the pay cut or their services would no longer be required.

GMB national officer Mick Rix said: “Whilst DHL pat themselves on the back, wallow in the their huge profits and senior execs hose themselves down in cash, let’s remember much of what they’ve achieved has been on the back of exploiting employees.

“Nowhere is this more true than DHL/UKMail, where couriers have had pay cut after pay cut forced on them, and continue to suffer unexplained and unauthorised deductions in their pay packets week in and week out.

“DHL is a cash rich global company that claims it signs up to the UN global compact agreement.

“Yet in DHL/UKMail, they act like any other spiv company in the parcel sector — with no moral compass whatsoever.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Britain / 17 June 2021
17 June 2021
All eight claimants say Labour acted unfairly by failing to close investigations or revoke their suspension or expulsion
Similar stories
People walking near the Bank of England
Britain / 20 February 2025
20 February 2025
Campaigners slam the Chancellor after Britain’s four biggest banks made a record £45.9bn in profits for 2024
TUC Congress 2024 / 10 September 2024
10 September 2024
Speaking to Elizabeth Short, SARAH WOOLLEY explains her union’s push for anonymous harassment reporting, an end to NDAs that protect abusive managers in food giants like McDonald’s — and why climate change is a baker’s issue
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) demonstrate
TUC 2024 / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
CWU leader DAVE WARD looks at the Royal Mail takeover bid, the new deal for workers – and how the labour movement should build on it