Inflation is also high in the first two months of this year. Wages are rising, but are still lagging behind. There is no question of overall price compensation, which results in large differences in the remuneration of employees.
“We believe that wages should be raised where possible,” said Ingrid Thijssen, chairman of employers’ association VNO-NCW, to NU.nl. “And that happens, as we have seen with municipal officials. There are even companies that raise wages outside the collective labor agreements.”
But full price compensation, in which employees are fully compensated for the high prices, is not an issue. This was only the case in our country in the 1970s. “That is simply not possible at all companies, since there is no room for it. Moreover, as an employee it is of no use to destroy your own sector.”
And that leads to skewed relationships. For example, wages are currently rising most on average in government, industry, wholesale and the food industry. Wage increases lagged behind most in the hotel and catering industry. The unions in these types of sectors usually fail to enforce substantial wage increases, because they often do not have a large following.
Minimum wage has lagged behind
In addition, the minimum wage has lagged considerably in recent decades. These are often workers at the lower end of the labor market. The cabinet has now increased the minimum wage by more than 10 percent this year, but that is not enough for the FNV.
The union has been campaigning for some time to raise the minimum wage to 14 euros per hour. A poll by I&O Research commissioned by the FNV shows that the Dutch would find 14.98 euros per hour fair. Almost 80 percent believe that the minimum wage should increase in line with average wages.
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‘People are still not getting around’
“But we’re still not there,” says FNV vice president Zakaria Boufangacha. “The minimum wage has been frozen for a long time. People are still not making ends meet, especially with the current inflation. They have no buffers or cannot go on holiday.”
In recent years, the situation has even led to a gap between wage structures within companies. Where one employee can afford everything, a flex worker, for example, is unable to pay the energy bill at the end of the month.
The current wave of strikes in our country will therefore continue in the coming weeks, that is the expectation in the polder. In regional transport, hospitals and at various other companies, employees are quitting work for a higher wage. “We ask for a 5 to 10 percent wage increase,” says CNV chairman Piet Fortuin. “Otherwise millions of workers will be in financial trouble.”
