New postal delivery firms are failing to win local authority contracts because they do not meet council conditions on delivery times and staff employment, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

Reseach by the paper shows some councils demand so many guarantees on working conditions that only TNT can meet them.
In addition, some councils put their postal delivery service out to tender as one bulk contract, without differentiating between post requiring fast or slow delivery.
TNT delivers six times a week, the new entrants twice. This means TNT competitors cannot guarantee fast delivery times and cannot therefore tender for mixed contracts, the paper says.
The Dutch postal market has been fully open to competition since April 2009.
TNT and the new players are currently embroiled in a bitter dispute about working conditions. Most of its rivals employ deliver staff on a freelance basis, without sick pay and a pension. This means they can undercut TNT and win bulk contracts.