1. Why are the NS employees on strike?
Collective negotiations for the National Railways (NS) started in May. The four railway unions tried to reach agreements with the management about wages and working conditions for approximately 19 thousand NS employees. They have been complaining about the workload for some time: many train employees have irregular working hours and work long shifts. Add to that the staff shortage – the NS is still looking for 1,100 people – and the workload is only increasing.
Unions appeared at the negotiating table with sharpened knives. They demand a better work-life balance. In addition, they want employees to be paid more. Given the sky-high inflation, which is likely to reach 9.9 percent this year, the unions want staff to be compensated for inflation. On top of that, they want a wage increase of about 3 percent. This adds up to about 100 euros more salary per month. Since the NS management is not ready for this, actions are now being prepared.
2. Are NS employees poorly paid?
That was not that bad. Starting train employees earn between 1,600 and 2,500 euros gross per month. Conductors and drivers with more experience can grow to 3,200 and 3,500 euros gross per month respectively. An irregularity allowance of an average of 600 euros is added to this. FNV negotiator Huub van den Dungen calls this ‘not a bad salary’. On the other hand, there are irregular working hours. ‘Most employees have to work two out of three weekends. It’s not much better on weekdays: they can start at four in the morning, or clock out late into the night.’
Salaries must therefore be raised, according to the trade unionist, to prevent NS from ‘falling away from the middle bracket’. In this historically tight labor market, for every a hundred unemployed have no fewer than 143 vacancies After all, there are plenty of other jobs that pay better, says Van den Dungen. ‘In the transport sector they have comparable working hours but a higher salary. You can also work for an attractive salary in industry, construction and metal. You have nicer working hours and are usually off on weekends. You can forget that at the NS.’
3. Where do the negotiations get stuck?
The NS keeps its teeth tight – ‘we don’t conduct negotiations through the newspaper’ – but the FNV is more relaxed. Most resistance is against the automatic price compensation. The unions want salaries to rise in line with inflation from now on. If prices rise by, for example, 5 percent next year, wages will automatically increase by 5 percent.
The question is whether this is a real proposal or just a negotiating tactic of the unions. NS employees are particularly keen on reducing work pressure. The unions also propose to reduce the number of weekend shifts. They also want to make agreements about reducing the staff shortage. According to the FNV, there is also little progress in this matter.
4. What will the traveler notice from the strike?
The so-called relay strike will start on Wednesday. This means that NS employees take turns putting down their work. On Wednesday, employees will start in the north region, which includes the Groningen, Leeuwarden, Zwolle and Lelystad stations. Then according to actions on Friday (Rotterdam and The Hague region). Monday 29 August (Amsterdam, Haarlem, international trains), Tuesday 30 August (Utrecht), and Wednesday 31 August (stations in Overijssel, Gelderland, Brabant and Limburg).
Although the strikes are spread over five regions, it is likely that their effects will be felt across the country. The Alkmaar-Maastricht intercity, for example, runs through several regions: maintaining such a connection is a logistical nightmare. On Tuesday, August 30, a large part of the train traffic will be shut down anyway, since Utrecht Central station is the most important railway junction. If, despite the actions, the NS management does not come up with a better proposal, a nationwide strike is imminent. It will follow in early September.
5. Does such a strike make sense?
It doesn’t look rosy on paper, says historian Sjaak van der Velden, affiliated with the International Institute of Social History (IISH). He investigated the effectiveness of Dutch strikes between 1945 and 1995. This shows that almost 59 percent of all actions had ‘some positive effect’. But with strikes in the (semi-)public sector, which includes the NS, that is a different story. ‘They are even less likely to meet the demands. Such an NS management often takes a much longer time than a private company that has to make a profit. And in the background, the fact that the NS is in the hands of the state also plays a role. That’s where the sentiment lives: we’re not going to be dictated by employees.’
Nevertheless, a strike in the public sector can be useful. According to Van der Velden, you do need a long breath and a large following. In this respect, the railway unions should not complain: of the nearly 20,000 employees, more than half are members of a trade union. That percentage is even higher among drivers and conductors, about 70 percent. In the past ten years, NS staff went on strike three times before, says FNV member Van den Dungen: in 2017 and 2019, the strike was against an increase in the retirement age, in 2021 only by station staff. After all these strikes, the unions reached an agreement.
6. Why are there no strikes in other sectors?
A tight labor market, high inflation: enough reason to demand more wages. The cabinet and the accountants of De Nederlandsche Bank and the Central Planning Bureau also believe that wages can rise. However, salaries are only increasing slowly. In the latest collective labor agreements, a wage increase of about 3.5 percent agreed. But if that salary increase is adjusted for inflation, employees have actually started earning more than 6 percent less.
Yet there are no strikes imminent in other sectors, unions FNV and CNV said when asked. This is partly due to the culture of consultation: a strike is seen as the ultimate weapon. The crumbling trade union power also plays a role. NS employees may have organized themselves well, but that is disappointing in the rest of society. Of all Dutch employees, less than 20 percent union member.
Strikes are therefore unthinkable in most sectors for the time being. Employees who want to improve their working conditions do so in a different way: with their feet. Job hopping is not such a realistic option for train conductors or drivers: the NS has practically a monopoly on the Dutch railways.