In the departure hall of Rotterdam Central you can almost see the courage sink into the shoes of travelers on Friday morning. With the Sardinian family, for example, who has to be at Schiphol at 12:00 for a flight home and now points to the digital timetable in defeat: ‘all letters are red’. With the Turkish expat, who has to be in Breda at 11 am to apply for her ‘dream job’. Also the blind man, who can’t see whether that one train from 09:56 to Amsterdam Central is going or not.
Anyone who turns hopeful to service desk employee Petra Vercouteren (57) on these frightening days is advised to contact her colleagues in Utrecht. Because the NS employee may always provide service with a big smile, but today she is not here for someone else. Here she stands for herself, or rather: for her collective labor agreement. Together with her colleagues in the rest of South Holland, she is on strike against the high work pressure and the wage offer of the NS.
Because at 3.2 percent per year, that is far too low to recruit new employees and thus reduce the staff shortage, says Vercouteren. Moreover, it is too little to compensate for inflation. NS employees are not the only ones who see their purchasing power further eroded every month: while the Central Planning Bureau expects prices to rise by 9.9 percent this year, wage increases remain at 3.5 to 4 percent.
FNV chairman Tuur Elzinga said in a reaction to the strike that he feared ‘this is the beginning of a hot autumn’. “We see that the economy is growing like a charm,” he said. “So now it’s really time for ordinary people to get something extra.” This is not the first time that the union has predicted tropical temperatures. Earlier this year, the union also warned of a ‘hot spring’ and, failing that, a ‘hot summer’. It was indeed hot, but so far not on the labor market.
Changed balance of power
Whether the prediction will come true this time depends – to stick with that metaphor – on climate change. According to emeritus professor of economic history Jan Luiten van Zanden, employees and employers still have to get used to the changed balance of power in the labor market. Since the 1980s, thanks to the wide range of workers, it was always the employer who could decide: ten others for you. Now it is the other way around: out of 143 vacancies, only 100 are unemployed.
‘The balance of power has been reversed, but it takes a while before our mentality gets used to this new economic reality,’ says Van Zanden. It reminds the professor of the 1960s, when the labor market was also under tension. ‘After the war, everyone was still worried that there weren’t enough jobs, but then economic growth came and the labor market became tighter,’ he says. ‘It only led to a strike wave in the 1970s, when the Netherlands was already in recession.’
According to the professor, this does not necessarily mean that a hot autumn will be years away. One strike, such as the one at Rotterdam Central, can be enough to break the ‘taboo’. Striking is contagious, according to professor of regulation of work Agnes Akkerman of the University of Amsterdam. ‘Research shows that a strike increases the chance of a strike in a similar sector or company.’
There is therefore a good chance that other carriers will soon also feel inspired to stop working. Especially because, according to Akkerman, research also shows that employees are more likely to strike if they risk losing something (purchasing power) than to gain something (wage increase). Although not every sector will be equally easy to mobilize, she thinks. After all, the willingness to strike strongly depends on the degree of organization of the trade union. Where it is 50 percent for the 20 thousand NS employees, nationally it is only one-sixth.
Strike Tradition
There is no strike tradition, particularly in ‘new’ sectors such as the services and information sector. Nor in jobs where highly educated people do individual work. They will be more inclined to negotiate their salary on an individual level. ‘Standing is also not the only thing employees can do to make their voices heard,’ says Akkerman. ‘They can also vote with their feet. Because changing jobs can often also lead to a better salary. For example, there are already employers who rent rooms for their Spanish cooks. These are also remuneration components that they are not tied to if they are not laid down in the collective labor agreement just like the wages.’
The latter is not an option for NS conductor Jelle Nauta (39), who lets an international passenger through the check-in gate at Rotterdam station. In recent months he may have been forced to exchange his Zaanse grocer for a German discounter: not a hair on his head thinking of leaving his employer. There is an old adage at NS: you go to work for the NS in order to retire.