Many employees of the Noordwest Hospital Group are angry and are taking action because the negotiations about their collective labor agreement seem to be going nowhere. “The trade unions and the Dutch Association of Hospitals are diametrically opposed to each other,” said nurse Tanneke Goverse of the Alkmaar location. The action is visible in the hospital: there are protest slogans on the walls.
The unions are demanding a 12.5 percent wage increase. But, according to Goverse, the Dutch Association of Hospitals (NVZ) should know nothing about that. The unions should now come up with a moderate wage demand, because the demand that is now on the table would mean bankruptcy for many hospitals. The NVZ does not comment on this, because: “We will not make any further statements about ongoing negotiations”.
The slogans on the walls of the Alkmaar hospital read: ‘If the NVZ does not cooperate, we will work in a UMC’, because a ten percent wage increase turned out to be feasible there. This is because university hospitals do not fall under the NVZ, but the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers.
Negotiations
The unions and the NVZ will meet again next month, but whether they will come to an agreement remains to be seen. If that is not the case, this may lead to a protest in which the healthcare workers will only work Sunday shifts. This means that only acute cases will be treated.
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