Bus drivers in Venlo will stop working on Saturday. They strike for a better collective labor agreement.
More than twenty drivers will go on strike that day. This means that there are buses within the municipality, but limited.
High working pressure
“Across the country, our members are dissatisfied with the employers’ final offer. They want something to be done quickly about the workload, because it causes a lot of loss among drivers,” explains FNV Streekvervoer director Marijn van der Gaag.
Understaffed
This third strike is part of the national relay strikes. In the new collective labor agreement, employees want higher wages, among other things, in order to attract young drivers. The union says there is a shortage of staff. “As a result, the timetables are becoming increasingly stressful with breaks that cannot be kept. The workload is so high that here and there the absenteeism rate rises to 25 percent,” says Van der Gaag.
Final exams
The strike may cause inconvenience to people using public transport. That is why we have deliberately chosen this Saturday and not next Monday. According to the union, graduation candidates should not be the victims of this.
The new collective labor agreement must apply with retroactive effect from 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2022.