Week of strike action grips the Netherlands: What you need to know

Strikes are planned for over 20 industries in the Netherlands this week, including public transport, healthcare and the police. Here’s everything you need to know about what’s driving them to strike, and how long the industrial action could last.

Why are strikes taking place in the Netherlands?

Dutch trade unions, FNV, CNV and VCP, have made demands that the government extend the early retirement scheme (RVU) that allows employees who perform physically and mentally taxing jobs to retire three years early. The current scheme is set to expire next year.

The amount of pension that the RVU pays out is also being discussed. Currently, workers with hard jobs who have retired early receive a net 1.200 euros per month, which is not enough for 90 percent of retirees to live on. 

The unions have been campaigning for extension and improvement of the heavy work scheme for quite some time and have listed the following demands:

• The RVU should become a permanent arrangement so that anyone performing heavy work can retire earlier.
• An increase in the amount given in the early retirement pension, with a target of 1.600 net euros per month.
• Let employers and unions determine together who is eligible for the RVU scheme.

More than 20 strikes planned across the Netherlands

Starting from Saturday, September 7, 2024, a week of more than 20 actions and strikes are taking place across the Netherlands. Public transport strikes taking place on September 10 and 11 have drawn a lot of attention, but there are other industries that will also be affected. Actions and strikes will also hit construction, industry, metal, cleaning, healthcare and police.

To demand a new and improved early retirement scheme, the Dutch police have been taking part in several actions. In May, police stopped punishing minor offences and then ramped up their protests by closing police stations to the public and not deploying officers at matches. This led to the cancellation of the match between Feyenoord and Ajax last month and could lead to further cancellations of future matches.

Workers in healthcare may not be participating in walkouts, but their form of protest includes taking longer breaks. The first strike for pharmacists has also taken place recently to demand better wages for workers in pharmacies. 

Cleaners across the country also put tools down earlier this week, including those at Dutch airports and train stations.

“Parts of the country will be paralysed several times to force the government to come up with a better arrangement whereby people with a heavy profession can stop working earlier,” said CNV chairman Piet Fortuin. “Everyone in the Netherlands will notice this strike. Rightly so: it is unacceptable that there is still no good arrangement for people with a heavy profession.”

Could there be more strikes in the Netherlands soon?

According to research done by CNV, 48 percent of workers are ready to take part in more industrial action multiple times in the future if demands for the RVU aren’t met, and a third of workers are prepared for an indefinite strike until demands are met. With how the negotiations are going, more strikes could be on the table.

The government has proposed a new temporary early retirement scheme instead of a permanent one, with an additional caveat of limiting the number of people who can qualify for the scheme to just 15.000 people per year. The government’s proposal also stated that only people above a certain income limit would be eligible for the new RVU scheme and that the scheme would need to be revisited every three years. “This way, we will have this unrest again every three years, and no one knows where they stand,” a FNV member told ANP.

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