Hospitals have warned the Government that it risks mass bankruptcies in the health sector if mandatory salary increases are imposed for health staff. The hospitals say the new demands will have a fatal impact on their ability to buy equipment and medicines. The collective agreement in the health system sets minimum pay levels – the lowest in the EU – at € 1,000 for a doctor and € 750 for a nurse. Some hospitals continue to refuse to raise wages to minimum levels, and unions threatened protests at the end of May. Health unions are proposing a new 25% increase in basic wages over the agreed minimum levels and are threatening protests that could shut down some hospitals.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
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