A painful situation for trade union FNV: In the first three months, the FNV sent a record number of ultimatums to employers in collective bargaining. There were about the same number of strikes as would normally occur in an entire year. The union thus celebrated one pay rise after another. Wages have not risen this fast in forty years. Now the union’s own staff is considering stopping work because of a dispute over the union’s own collective labor agreement.
1 What’s going on with the union?
The FNV presents employers throughout the country with an employment conditions agenda that states that purchasing power must at least remain the same for everyone, and that therefore there must be automatic price compensation for inflation. Now the FNV staff is asking for the same compensation for their own new collective labor agreement, which the employer and the staff have been negotiating for a few months now. Over the past ten years, wages at FNV have risen by a maximum of 3 percent annually.
Employer FNV made a final offer this week. FNV Personeel does not think that offer is sufficient and therefore gave the employer an ultimatum. If it does not respond to the demands, the staff will take action at the annual FNV march on Labor Day on 1 May. “The activists will then be visible by wearing bright yellow T-shirts and banners,” says the spokesperson for FNV Personeel. In addition, the staff will stop working from 2 May. Several strikes will follow until the union and the employer have agreed on the new collective labor agreement.
2 What do the employer and staff disagree about?
FNV Personeel wants employees to be compensated for inflation by introducing an automatic price compensation (apc) in the new collective labor agreement. The employer wants to conclude a collective labor agreement for three years in which wages will rise between 3 and 7 percent as of 1 May, depending on the employee’s salary. As far as employers are concerned, the APC will only be introduced from next year with a maximum of 5 percent extra wage.
FNV Personeel doesn’t think this is a real apc: “If inflation is very high, as it has been recently, automatic price compensation with a maximum of 5 percent is of virtually no use,” says FNV Personeel director Judith Westhoek.
According to the chair of the employers’ delegation, Mariska Razoux Schultz, the proposal is in line with the FNV employment conditions policy and employees will therefore receive an APC. “As employers (..) we also have a responsibility to handle members’ money carefully and to ensure a balanced budget.”
3 Who might take action and strike?
About 1,600 employees are affiliated with FNV Personeel. The group ranges from directors and secretaries to security guards and facility services.
It is remarkable that the FNV staff is going to strike. “It is a unique situation,” says the spokesperson on behalf of the staff. “Since the FNV existed in its current form after the merger in 2013, the staff has never been on strike.”
4 Will the FNV lose face because of the possible strike?
“That depends on whether the employers ultimately comply with our demands,” says the personnel spokesperson. “If that does not happen, we will escalate further by striking even more. For the image of our directors who sit at the negotiating table with other employers, it is important that the FNV sets a good example.”
According to director Westhoek, FNV employees are “no different from people who work for example at KLM or in healthcare”. It is exciting for everyone to go on strike, she says. But a possible strike action, she believes, would not have been necessary if the FNV had responded better to its own policy in the negotiations with the staff. “We believe that in this way it is made impossible for administrators to ask other employers for anything other than what is given to us by the FNV. What kind of message are you sending me out into the world with? our directors think.”
Employers’ delegation chairwoman Mariska Razoux Schultz calls the FNV “also just an organization where we occasionally disagree” and that, according to her, “sometimes leads to an action or strike”.
Martin Pikaart, chairman of the alternative trade union AVV, calls the struggle between the FNV and its own staff “extremely bad for the image”. “Employers will say at the negotiating table: we read that an automatic price compensation with a maximum of 5 percent is also sufficient in your opinion.”
5 Was it still an option not to mount a possible strike action, to avoid an uncomfortable situation like this?
Westhoek: “The core of trade union work is standing up for employment conditions. If we don’t do that within our company, how can we do it in the outside world?”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 29, 2023.