A nurse who drives her own car to the hospital to start a shift receives 8 cents per kilometre. You simply have to pay for parking on the hospital grounds, the employer only reimburses part of the cost. Taking the train or bus is often not an option due to evening and night shifts and, moreover, train tickets are not fully reimbursed. If you work in a hospital, the unions say, you have already lost part of your income in advance. “It can’t be the case that you have to pay money to work,” says Elise Merlijn, director at FNV Zorg & Welzijn.
The travel costs are only part of the collective labor agreement negotiations for hospital employees that have been muddling on for months. But they are not unimportant. Although employers in the Netherlands are not formally obliged to pay travel or parking costs, many organizations have a collective labor agreement or their own personnel scheme that includes such a payment. Most employers pay at least the amount that can be paid out without tax: now 21 cents per kilometer. That amount has just been increased and will increase by another 2 cents to 23 cents next year.
The hospitals, represented in collective bargaining by the Dutch Association of Hospitals (NVZ), have offered to go from 8 to 11 cents this year. And next year to 14 cents. In the police, a profession that is often compared to healthcare, 19 cents is the norm and travel by train is fully reimbursed. “Due to staff shortages, hospitals are trying to get people from all over the place. This means that people often have to drive far, while petrol prices are rising,” says Michel van Erp, spokesperson for the NU’91 trade union.
Failed negotiations
No one can say exactly what went wrong in the negotiations. But at the end of last month, the consultations between the trade unions and the NVZ, which is conducting the negotiations on behalf of the employers, collapsed. The hospital collective labor agreement applies to approximately 200,000 employees. University hospitals have their own collective labor agreement. Negotiations have now been going on for five months, seven consultation rounds later, the NVZ’s final offer has been rejected by the unions. Although there was initially some ambiguity about whether or not there was an offer. It was clear that the expectations of employers on the one hand and unions on the other were far apart. And that now seems unchanged.
The NVZ did not hide its anger last month, with Sven Kockelmann on Radio 1, chairman Ad Melkert said that he had been “very grumpy” about the rejection. In a statement he called it “impossible” and “mindful” – a statement that the NVZ sent before the unions had received the formalized final offer.
Hospital staff will take action if the NVZ does not comply with the union’s demands
Now the NVZ prefers not to talk. “In order not to disrupt the process between hospitals and unions, we are not saying anything at the moment. Except that our offer is the best collective bargaining offer ever proposed. We do not understand that it has been rejected,” said Wouter van der Horst, spokesperson for the NVZ.
The ultimatum set by the unions expires around noon on Tuesday. If the NVZ does not comply with the demands of the unions, the staff will take action. A so-called Sunday service is planned in March, during which only essential care is provided. Plannable care is postponed. This Tuesday, if the demands are rejected, there will be a ‘sitting action’ in the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam. The FNV expects “hundreds of participants”. Earlier there was a similar action in the Amphia Hospital in Breda, in which some hospital employees said they could no longer pay their bills and transport costs.
Inflation
What do the unions want to achieve? At first glance, the NVZ’s proposal seems generous: a wage increase of 13 percent over two years, higher allowances for on-call services and the right to be unavailable during leisure time. But the wage increase will come in steps of 5 percent (immediately), another 5 percent (December this year) and finally 3 percent (June next year). Then 13 percent may seem like a lot, says FNV Zorg & Welzijn director Elise Marijn, but for most of this year it means an increase of only 5 percent. Moreover, with this offer, the unions would “pin” themselves to an increase of 3 percent in 2024, says Michel van Erp, spokesperson for the NU’91 trade union. “We do not yet know how high inflation will be.”
Due to the uncertain situation, the unions, which are jointly involved in this collective labor agreement process, now prefer a one-year collective labor agreement instead of a two-year one. In addition, they want a wage increase of 10 percent, just like the university hospitals. “So that later, when we know the future situation better, we can look at the next year,” says Van Erp. But a one-year collective agreement is not a hard requirement: if the employers want to continue negotiating a two-year collective agreement, “we will give and take at the table”. Joost Veldt, collective labor agreement negotiator at the CNV trade union: “Longer than a year is negotiable, but then we have to make good agreements about wage increases in the second year.”
The on-call services are also a point of discussion for the parties. There is an additional fee for shifts hired by employees within 72 hours in advance to reward flexibility. But the unions consider the option for employees to be paid in time more important than the allowance. “This way you give them the chance to recover from extra hours through more free time.” In this way, employees have more ‘control over their own schedule’, says Veldt of the CNV. “Then you can work an extra shift if the need is high in the hospital and have a private life.”
‘Doctors are constantly dropping out’
Rob Koster, collective labor agreement negotiator at the FBZ trade union, also emphasizes the position of the ‘aios’ (doctor in training to become a specialist). In principle, it works for 38 hours, but an additional 10 hours can be added. In practice, this happens more often than not. “These doctors are increasingly experiencing burnout symptoms – we need to treat them more carefully. That starts with a normal working week.” This also applies to interns (medical students who gain practical experience in the hospital), says Koster: they receive an expense allowance of 100 euros per month. “We want them to receive a decent internship allowance for the hard work they do.”
On the other hand, many hospitals are also in dire financial situations. Earlier, Wouter van der Horst, spokesman for the NVZ, already said against NRC that this bid seeks ‘the edges’ of what is financially possible. Moreover, in recent years, hospitals have incurred a lot of costs from expensive freelancers: due to the high workload, many employees opt for more control by becoming self-employed. Thanks to the favorable labor market for them, with large shortages, they can charge high rates. And they will probably declare the travel expenses.
Also read this article: Was there an offer of 13 percent or not? Yes, the hospitals say. No, says the union