FNV has announced that it will take action again in September because of the threatened cuts to social security. There will be strikes in various sectors, including probably a 24-hour strike on the railways.

“The strikes will be bigger than last time,” FNV chairman Hans Spekman reported last night (opens in new window). They will be held in the first two weeks of September with, in addition to the rail strike, also strikes in the ports and in the government.

Actions are also being taken in healthcare, but there will be no strike there, Spekman said, “because we don’t want patients to suffer the consequences.”

A spokesperson for the union said that it is not yet known which public transport organizations will take part in actions: “The exact details are still being determined.”

The government plans, among other things, to shorten the unemployment benefit and to simplify the WIA, the benefit for the long-term ill. The FNV is strongly against this. According to Spekman, “the cabinet is not moving” and actions are therefore justified, despite the inconvenience that travelers experience.

No date chosen yet

Action was also taken last month. On June 24, no trains ran for four hours across the country due to a strike. So it goes in September for a longer strike. According to Spekman, an exact date has not yet been chosen.

Trains will most likely still run between Amsterdam Central Station, Schiphol and Hoofddorp. During other strikes, unions tried to completely halt train transport to the airport, but the courts put a stop to this.

City and regional transport

These new actions are separate from possible strikes in urban and regional transport due to the stalling of collective labor agreements. Yesterday, FNV and CNV walked out of the consultation because they see no basis for further discussions.

According to the unions, after seven rounds of negotiations, the latest proposal still leads to fewer security(opens in new window)flexibilization of work and a high workload for staff.

After the summer, the unions want to present the situation to their members and decide whether there will also be strikes in city and regional transport. The public transport collective labor agreement applies to approximately 13,000 employees of Arriva, Transdev, EBS, Keolis, Qbuzz and RET. The NS has its own collective labor agreement.