“Then you can do two things,” explains union director Agostino Di Giacomo Russo. “You can accept their counter-offer, or you can take action. Teva employees chose the second. “And of course we facilitate that,” said Di Giacomo Russo.
Reward system
After some conversations with the strikers, it quickly becomes clear that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with Teva’s wage system. According to the employees, the complicated reward system has ensured that many people receive less pay than was agreed in advance. That causes a lot of dissatisfaction and stress.
Among the strike group is 22-year-old Rik. For him, the 1.5 percent offer comes much too late. “Why don’t we just get that increase now? My income is just becoming less and less valuable,” says Rik.
Another employee confirms his concerns. “Inflation rose enormously, but that was not compensated for in our salaries. It is very unfair and no one knows where they stand. That is why we are here now, it is serious.”
Higher scale
The older generation of employees is also not happy: their wages do not structurally increase with their years in the job, they say. This was corrected last year, but “they have chronically received too little money,” says an employee.
Oscar Vos has been working for the company in the microbiology department for 23 years. He does not experience the same problems as those of his colleagues, but he does see that the system is flawed. “There are now too large differences in salaries due to this distribution system.”
A number of board members have now also come to observe the strike. They talk to the employees. “That’s neat,” says Di Giacomo Russo. “Hopefully we can figure it out soon.”