2023-05-01 17:21:00
With a rainbow and an FNV flag in her hand, Sietske Smit stands on the George Gershwinplein in Amsterdam. The trade union leader is here to take action. Not for others, as she normally does, but for herself. “I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. Normally I help others, this is crazy,” she says, brushing a pink lock from her face.
In negotiations, FNV invariably asks for wages that rise in line with inflation. By demanding automatic price compensation. But now that its own employees demand the same, the union is protesting. They do want to agree on automatic price compensation, but with a ceiling, an increase of no more than 5 percent.
And the employees don’t accept that. Because last year inflation was much higher than 5 percent. “We always set out with a substantial wage demand and now our own employer does not want to offer that. That is not in line with what we stand for, what we fight for,” says Smit.
She’s not the only one who thinks this way. FNV employees want their employer to make a better offer. And they let people know by taking action on Monday afternoon during the May 1 march organized by FNV on Labor Day. Their shirts say: #team business card, 14.3 percent, FNV must play better at home.
What has to be done has to be done
“We, the employees, are the calling card of the FNV,” says the cheerful Willem Banning, FNV director who stands up for benefit recipients. He had not expected that he would take action today for his own collective labor agreement. But what should that be, he thinks. “If you don’t stand up for your own rights, how can you stand up for the rights of others?”
His colleagues shout “Action!”, someone blows a whistle so hard that his face turns red. According to Niek Stam, port manager at FNV for thirty years today, it is simple. “People must be able to maintain their purchasing power. Then you shouldn’t come up with a ceiling. Just work towards full automatic price compensation in three years,” he says. So that everyone can continue to pay for groceries, even if prices rise.
On Tuesday, the employees, united in FNV Personeel – a union within the union – will hold a national strike day. They will gather at the head office in Utrecht. There is a good chance that the union will then be difficult to reach.
Negotiator on behalf of FNV Personeel Judith Westhoek expects that it will not be easy to persuade the employer to come up with a better offer. “I was already afraid that we would have to take action,” says Westhoek. It is not for nothing that the bright yellow shirts and a few yellow flags have already been printed.
The willingness to take action among trade union employees is high. “98 percent agreed with the idea of taking action,” says Willem Banning. Yet it is quite unique that people who work for a union go on strike themselves. It almost happened in 2019, when FNV employees threatened to take action because the union wanted to cut 250 jobs due to declining membership.
But before the strikes started, FNV was already sitting around the table to look at other solutions, says trade union expert Rosa Kösters of the International Institute of Social History. There was also a very short strike in 2001, when 45 jobs would disappear, she knows. The action lasted an hour.
Classic internal struggle
Now it’s not about a reorganization, but about wages. A classic internal struggle, according to Kösters. “It is always a trade-off within the union. Do we send the money to campaigners or to staff?” Negotiator Judith Westhoek thinks that by making different choices there is still something in the barrel for the staff.
At the end of last year, FNV announced that it would register more new members. “The members are an important source of income for the union. For years, more members left than joined. Members have been added since September last year, but that is apparently not enough,” says Kösters.
It may well be that FNV members have infected themselves with the campaign virus now that they see that successful campaigns have been conducted in all kinds of sectors in recent months, thinks Kösters. “Moreover, these are people who know how to negotiate, how to put pressure on. These people know exactly what they are doing.”
Willem Banning laughs. “That’s right, we have experience in campaigning and negotiating. But so is our employer,” he says. And while he seems to be having a good time with his colleagues – some have cracked open a beer, others are smoking a cigar – he would like to point out that no one goes on strike for fun.
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