“We are sick of it,” says FNV man Cihan Lacin. “After the accumulation of misery in recent years, these collective labor agreement negotiations are all about the workplace,” he says.
By misery, for example, he means the reorganization this year, which will cost the jobs of about 800 of the total of approximately 9,000 people. Moreover, a few months ago it emerged that Tata Steel executives would increase their salaries in a few years saw it double.
‘Driving to work is an expensive hobby’
There is now a three percent wage increase on the table for employees, which will take effect in 2027. Too little, Lacin thinks.
One of the few hundred activists in front of the Dudokhuis, the company’s headquarters, wholeheartedly agrees: “They get it, and we don’t. A big hope and a small hope. We get little and their a lot of. Yeah, that’s a bit crooked.”
To reinforce its demands for better employment conditions, FNV organized a fun campaign: employees could come and eat fries around noon. But more importantly, together they offered two cones to the management: one fries with mayonnaise and ketchup, or a fries war.
In the video report above you can see what choice financial director Hans Turkesteen made. But tomorrow it will become clear how Tata Steel really responds: then the company and the unions will continue negotiations.
