Trade union movement angry with companies: seven times more money for shareholders than for own staff | Economy

That ratio is completely skewed, according to an angry European trade union movement. “Millions of workers fighting to keep their heads above water will find it hard to believe these figures,” said Esther Lynch, top woman of the European trade union umbrella organization Etuc. “It is clear, still, that there are different rules for the rich than for the poor.”

The union umbrella, which represents 45 million workers, urgently calls on European governments to tax excessive profits, set caps on dividend payments and support collective bargaining as a means of ensuring workers get their share of the pie.

Lynch: “They are being told that this is no time for a pay rise, while shareholders are popping the champagne corks to celebrate their dividend payments. This is all the worse because many companies are also hurting the purchasing power of their own employees with their inflation-driven exorbitant profits.” At the same time, they are failing to invest heavily in their own future, Etuc said, as private investment is still below pre-coronavirus levels.

The figures from the trade union umbrella show that the situation in the Netherlands is certainly not more favorable than the average in Europe. In the EU-27, dividend payments rose 28.7 percent on average and wages are expected to rise by 3.8 percent this year, with inflation at 9.8 percent. In the Netherlands, dividend payments rose 23.4 percent and wages are expected to rise by 3 percent at an inflation rate of 11.6 percent. A favorable exception to the European figures is Belgium, where, thanks to the automatic indexation, employees seem to arrive at a wage increase of 5.9 percent.

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