Five people seconded from PPG Coatings in Hoogeveen to Scania in Meppel today resigned from their work out of dissatisfaction with their collective labor agreement. According to the strikers and trade union FNV, a good wage increase should be included in this. PPG Coatings Nederland is part of the global group PPG Industries, which generated a turnover of USD 17.7 billion last year.
Not only the truck factory on Industrieweg is on strike. Work had also been halted for several days at the PPG Coatings branches in Tiel and Uithoorn. In addition to the striking staff in Meppel, employees of a PPG branch in Den Bosch have also laid down their work since Monday morning, and a hundred more employees from the Amsterdam factory will be added this week.
“The oil slick is getting bigger and bigger,” says Erik de Vries, director of FNV Procesindustrie. “Everywhere at PPG, people are ready to take action for a collective agreement with a good wage increase. The management can now really start to worry, because we are well on our way to a national strike.” Although there are five strikers in Meppel, the impact of their action is great, says De Vries. “They ensure that the production process is down.”
FNV wants a good collective labor agreement for the total of 1100 people at PPG Coatings. In it, the union wants to increase salaries by 14.3 percent this year, with retroactive effect from 1 January of this year. The union also demands that wages rise in line with prices in the shops. The paint manufacturer is nevertheless sticking to a salary increase of 7 percent for the time being.
The strike of the five in Meppel will last until Wednesday morning, says De Vries. “Depending on how Scania reacts to this, it can become increasingly annoying. The strikers in Tiel and Uithoorn have already shown what the consequences can be for the production process. It is only a matter of time before the employees stop working again. And then for longer time.”
At Scania in Meppel, where plastic cabin and chassis parts are painted, no one wanted to say anything about the consequences of the strike.