The largest Dutch union, FNV, demands a wage increase of 5 to 14 percent. This will become the starting point for new collective labor agreements. The association announced this today, a day before Budget Day. Earlier, the CNV trade union mentioned a wage demand of between 4 and 10 percent.
According to FNV, this is necessary to compensate for the costs incurred by employees for groceries, energy and housing. Vice-chairman Zakaria Boufangacha of FNV: “There is still an inflation gap that needs to be made up in many collective labor agreements. Although inflation has fallen in recent months, the damage is still there.”
The trade unionist does indicate that wage increases are needed more in some sectors than in others. “Therefore, the final requirement may also differ per sector or organization.”
Declining inflation
A year ago, FNV demanded 12 to more than 14 percent extra wages. This was based on inflation which peaked at 14.5 percent in September last year. Inflation is now declining. Energy prices have fallen and, for example, fruit and vegetables have no longer risen in price.
The Central Planning Bureau also recently predicted that purchasing power will cautiously recover for a large group of workers in 2024, partly due to wage increases in many sectors. Yet Boufangacha thinks this is insufficient. “Many people are still at a loss.”
The latest inflation figures cannot be compared one-to-one with last year’s percentage: since June, Statistics Netherlands has been using a new calculation method in which the price of new energy contracts is dampened by existing ones.
Linking wage increases to inflation
The union also demands that from now on the increase in wages must be in line with inflation, the so-called automatic price compensation. This is how it is arranged in Belgium. In the Netherlands, this only applies to the collective labor agreement for dock workers.
