A wage increase of more than 4 percent is part of the collective labor agreement that trade unions and INretail, representing the interests of retail companies, have reached together. Members of trade unions CNV, De Unie, AVV and RMU Employees still have to agree to the agreement. Trade union FNV is again not participating.
The new collective labor agreement will run from 1 July to 31 December this year, with wage scales increasing by 4.36 percent. Employees who earn more than the maximum of their scale as of 1 July, but not more than 4,000 euros, will receive a one-off payment of 2.5 percent of six gross monthly salaries.
The parties have also agreed that evening work for store employees will be limited to a maximum of two evenings per week, with the exception of the busy and important month of December. Employees will also have the right to refuse broken shifts and part-time employees who are already employed will be given priority on vacancies.
The collective labor agreement concerns 175,000 employees. The members of the four unions must provide clarity about the agreements by 24 June at the latest.
FNV: ’empty collective labor agreement’
According to FNV, shop staff are being fooled with this ’empty collective labor agreement’. FNV states that the more than 4 percent wage increase is a combination of “creative calculations and window dressing”. According to FNV director Linda Vermeulen, mandatory increases are added to the percentages and brought forward and a large group of employees are excluded from the salary increase. “If such a large collective labor agreement is concluded silently on so many employees, without action, without pressure, without unions expressing themselves, then something is wrong.” (ANP)
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 15 June 2022