On 26 May, over 6,000 military and civil staff of the Dutch armed forces held a ‘March for Esteem’ to The Hague, followed by a rally, in a peaceful protest of the immense budget cuts the government has announced for the army. According to the plans of Minister of Defense, Hans Hillen, 12,000 army jobs are to disappear, half of these through forced dismissals. According to all unions involved, the Minister refuses to make decent arrangements for negotiating a new collective agreement and a social plan. AbvaKabo FNV union official, Marieke Manschot, argued that forced dismissals largely could be avoided by spreading out the army restructuring.
Dutch: http://www.abvakabofnv.nl/sectoren/overheid2/?OverviewType=Nieuws ...
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 at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.