There is no shortage of strike experience at the FNV trade union. But as a rule, the actions do not take place in their own trade union house. That is the case this Monday. In the early morning, the head office in Utrecht is full of striking national staff. The FNV employees wear vests and sweaters with texts such as ‘we are the business card of the Netherlands’ calling and get stickers on which the blue letters in the FNV logo have been transformed into ‘WTF’.
The FNV staff demands a ‘safe working environment’. The FNV’ers call the general board of the union that, according to them, that safety within their own organization has not been able to guarantee, to resign. The staff also wants the upcoming internal elections to be postponed. In the coming weeks, elections are planned for, among other things, a new chairman and a new general board and member parliament, but whether they will continue is still uncertain.
Has been rumbling for months
It has been rumbling for months at the largest trade union in the Netherlands, and in particular in the board, which meets at the time of the strike at the top of the building. Judith Westhoek, who leads its own association for the FNV staff, reports from the stage that “they make important decisions. Let’s help them make good decisions. “
The room is full of colleagues who are worried and are angry, but are also generated – some take the word ‘ashamed’ in the mouth – for what has been happening with their beloved tied in recent times. There was an accusation of cross -border behavior, apparently to work against vice -president Zakaria Boufangacha in his throw at the chairmanship. There was the now stepped secretary Bart Plaatje who would have shared external investigations into the functioning of FNV colleagues internally. There were ultimata and parts of the union expressed their displeasure to each other.
The strike registration has more than seven hundred strikers on Monday, about half of the staff. (Two years ago, a strike from the FNV staff for a better collective labor agreement set up more than 400 people.) The enthusiasm is greater this time, and the anger seems to focus primarily on chairman Tuur Elzinga, who is the unrest on Z ‘ n, before he managed last week on the postponement of the administrative and chairman elections. However, a decision on that did not fall on Monday.
‘Come off that roof’
In the morning the board must be called down by its own staff. ‘Come on from that roof’ from Peter Koelewijn blares from the speakers of the trade union house. “We are FNV” and “Safety First” and “Stake safely,” are called from the hall downstairs. And then, as if a screenwriter thought it up, part of the board leaves the meeting and descends to the room in a glass lift.
Chairman Tuur Elzinga is the first to speak. “Are you still chairman?” He is asked. Elzinga takes the microphone. The letter with the staff requirements “is on the table, but we have not talked about it yet,” he says. “We’re going to do that.” Carefully boo from the room. Elzinga gets a golden turd on a foot like a trophy for the ‘huge shits show’ that unfolded at FNV under his leadership in recent weeks.
After Elzinga, a group of board members will be on stage, alongside vice -presidents Kitty Jong and Zakaria Boufangacha, these are treasurer Piet Rietman and Bas van Weegberg, among others. They all make an excited impression. They are talking about errors made, and arguing that the board has not entered into a discussion sufficiently, with their own employees and with the members in different sectors. “If you dare to show insufficient leadership in a crisis, you have to connect your consequences,” says Rietman in a hard call to chairman Elzinga.
Zakaria Boufangacha thanks the room for the support he in the weeks after the story about the ‘demonstrable false report’ via the media came out and has felt and makes a call for togetherness. “If we have no confidence in each other, it will be at the expense of good trade union work and that is why we are here, we want to be able to build good trade union work.” That sentiment appears to be widely worn in the room, he gets his hands on each other.
“The chairman could have said that,” Jong summarizes the dissatisfaction. She already supported Boufangacha publicly, in an interview with de Volkskrant. Now she is called a ‘whistleblower’ and ‘a woman with balls’ on stage. The splitting on the board, which continues with meetings, now signs up in front of its own staff.
Come out together again
Judith Westhoek of his own association FNV Personeels says that new actions can follow if the requirements are not met, but calls on the strikers not to stay up to the requirements. Westhoek wants ‘in conversation’ with the board. The experienced strikers recognize a strategy here, not to drive all too much to the point. The current ‘shits show’ is bad enough, and we have to come out step by step together, it is sentiment. In the words of Margot Kranenburg, unpaid member of the General Board: “Everyone wants to come out of this […] There is no best solution, but only a least bad one. “
After most of the strikers in the winter sun have consumed fries outside-a strike tradition-the FNV staff drips off at the beginning of the afternoon, pending what the board concludes. They have to wait a long time for that decision. Around 6 pm the drivers leave the trade union house around 6 pm, to continue to meet digitally, including with the election committee.
Later in the evening, decisions were further advanced during that digital meeting. “Tomorrow,” said a spokesperson for the FNV.
Supplement (17 February): This article is at 10 p.m. Light adjusted when it became clear that no decisions would be taken on Monday.