Netherlands - University staff rejects pay freeze - August 31, 2010

Following municipal and provincial employees, university staff is rejecting the pay freeze that the current government announced in spring for the public sector at large. By 1 March, 2010, the collective agreement for the universities expired; negotiations have ended up in a deadlock as the union demands of 1.25% and employment guarantees have been rejected by VSNU, the university employers’ organisation. According to Hugo Levie, VSNU negotiator, the unions’ wage demands are “reasonable”, but the universities are simply in lack of money. The Abvakabo FNV union used the celebrations of the opening of the Academic Year in Nijmegen and Delft, on 30 August, to start actions, which will be pursued on 6 September, when in the other university cities the Academic Year will formally start. The union argues that a pay freeze for universities is at odds with the country’s ambition to expand as a “knowledge economy.”

Dutch: De Volkskrant, August 31, 2010;

http://www.abvakabofnv.nl/nieuws/nieuws/investeren-in-personeel …

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.