In this way, the union tries to support the purchasing power of workers. This has ‘disappeared like snow in the sun’ last year as a result of screeching inflation and lagging wages. The Central Bureau of Statistics has never seen such a big difference between price and wage increases. That has to change, according to the union. He wants wages to be increased retroactively every January with the inflation of the previous calendar year. That would amount to a plus of about 12 percent for this year.
The wage demand, which is traditionally presented the day before Budget Day, will be the basis for collective bargaining in all sectors. About 80 percent of all workers are still covered by a collective labor agreement. Soon those for childcare, hospital staff, municipalities and the metal sector will have to be renewed, among others.
It remains to be seen whether the country’s largest trade union will succeed in cashing in on the wage demand. Last year, FNV also demanded automatic price compensation (apc) plus 100 euros gross, but that fell on deaf ears: the apc only appeared in 13 collective labor agreements, including at university medical centers and painters. On average, wages increased by 3.3 percent last year, calculated the employers’ organization AWVN.
recession
Employers are not eager to raise wages sharply, especially not if those wage increases are automatically linked to prices. It evokes memories of the 1970s. Back then, almost all collective labor agreements still had such an APC. At the time, companies financed wage increases by raising prices, which caused wages to rise again. Wages and prices kept pushing each other up until the Netherlands eventually ended up in recession. In 1982 the apc was parted.
But according to the FNV trade union, that fear is unfounded: after all, wages are only adjusted for inflation afterwards with the apc. In addition, the union points to the record profits that companies made last year and in the first quarter of this year. Earlier calculations by the Central Planning Bureau already showed that a smaller and smaller part of that profit ended up with the worker: of every euro earned last year, 74.9 cents went to wages, the year before that was 77 cents.