Dutch trade unions have announced that regional public transport workers in the Netherlands will be staging another five days of strikes, starting on Monday, February 6.
Negotiations between public transport operators and trade unions so far remain unsuccessful, with the two sides knocking heads over salaries, work contracts, and employee workloads. This week, after the unions’ ultimatum was rejected by employers, the Christian National Trade Union (CNV) and the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) announced that workers would be striking again in February.
“Once again employers are leaving their employees out in the cold,” FNV's Marijn van der Gaag said in a statement. “They continue to block a good collective labour agreement that ensures a good income and low work pressure.” Employers, on the other hand, argue that the agreement on the table is already “better than average.”
Next week's strikes mark the fourth period of industrial action for regional workers since September, and the second since the start of 2023.
The national five-day strike action will kick off on Monday morning (February 6), with up to 13.000 workers expected to take part. It is not yet clear exactly how many and which public transport services will be affected by the strikes, but passengers have been warned to prepare for delays and cancellations, and have been advised to adjust their travel plans when possible.
Once again, the strike won’t affect Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) rail services, or the majority of city-wide operators, for example, the GVB in Amsterdam, RET in Rotterdam and HTM in The Hague. This is due to the fact that workers at these companies fall under different labour agreements.
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