Although the strikes of employees of paint giant PPG seemed like an endless prayer, the company and the unions have agreed tonight: the approximately 1,000 employees of the paint factories will receive a 10 percent wage increase. That would mean the end of the strikes that have been organized – off and on – in various PPG branches since May. The outcome is not yet entirely certain: the members of the union still have to agree to it.
CNV Vakmensen, which is also negotiating on behalf of the activists, is happy with the results. Whether it is enough remains to be seen, says Chantal van Binsbergen of CNV Vakmensen. “That is up to the members, they now have two weeks to consider the result. Only if they also think it is sufficient will there be a new collective agreement. If they think it is too little, we will take the actions as soon as possible. up again.”
The latest offer of a 9 percent raise that PPG proposed on Wednesday, did not even want to show the activists to the employees. ‘Too low’ was their verdict. For this, the company put 7 percent on the table, which they found “fair and reasonable.”
The employees disagreed. “PPG Industries had a turnover of 17.7 billion dollars last year, but employees of the factory see nothing of that”, FNV director Erik de Vries explained at the time.
Possibly sufficient
PPG Industries sells paint in the Netherlands under the names Histor, Sigma and Rambo and has grown into the world’s largest player in the industry. According to Leen van Mever, who has been working for PPG for thirty years, this increase in scale has ‘disappeared the human dimension’.
The factory workers initially demanded a wage increase of 14.3 percent to compensate for the inflation of the past period. FNV did indicate that ‘a middle ground was possible’. De Vries did not want to say what percentages the employees would agree to. Whether that 10 percent is sufficient remains to be seen in the coming weeks.