60

The French postal service determines the rounds of its postal delivery staff based on the time needed to sort and distribute the post for each round. Until the early 2000s, it timed the various stages for each round. Since then, it has speeded up the process of revising rounds by implementing automatic combinations of estimated traffic flows, geographical references, and pre-set standard speeds and times. Though the program was decades in the making, it was only implemented with the reduction of legal working hours and declining postal deliveries. It is now controversial due to the use of standard speeds and times dating from the 1990s. Their relevance has been challenged by postal delivery workers and their representatives. The postal service cannot argue in favor of them since it claims no longer to have the documents showing how its own “norms and rhythms” were designed.