Employers’ organizations want wages to ‘breathe’ with the economy. It is one of the issues they will focus on in the collective labor agreement negotiations next year. This is stated in the terms of employment memorandum of employers’ associations AWVN, MKB Nederland and VNO NCW.
According to the employers, employees should share more of the profits, and agreed wage increases should be able to be temporarily withdrawn in the event of an economic shock. The FNV union calls the proposal “downright antisocial”.
‘Tight tackling’
The core of the efforts of employers in the coming year is tackling the shortage on the labor market, says employers’ association AWVN. According to them, a good wage is part of this and employees should also be able to benefit from the profits where possible.
“And if we really end up in a crisis situation,” says general director Raymond Puts of employers’ association AWVN in the newspaper. NOS Radio 1 News, “Let’s give each other the space to talk to each other again.” As an example of such a crisis situation, Puts mentions a very deep lockdown for a few months.
According to Vice-President of FNV Zakaria Boufangacha, who uses the words “downright antisocial”, the entrepreneurial risk is passed on to employees if promised wage increases are withdrawn. That shift is already happening, the union says, because well-performing companies have increasingly opted for flex workers and the self-employed, in order to keep labor costs cheap and flexible.
Let wages rise with inflation
In their negotiations, the union focuses on automatic price compensation: wages then automatically rise in line with inflation. In November, inflation reached its highest level in 40 years. In response, AWVN points to the risk of a wage-price spiral. If wages automatically increase in line with inflation, the costs for companies will rise even more, forcing companies to raise prices again. That could actually encourage inflation, they say.
According to the FNV trade union, it is precisely a way of letting wages move along with economic development. “Exactly what employers want,” the union writes in a response.
So far this year, 392 collective labor agreements have been concluded for 3.71 million employees, AWVN said. The average wage increase in 2021 is 1.92 percent.
–
