At the end of April 2022 we started negotiations for a new collective labor agreement and a new social plan as of 1 July 2022. In this I, Emanuel Geurts, represent your interests as a member of De Unie† My new colleague Mandy Raaijmakers is accompanying me in this negotiation process. Each round of negotiations we deal with a number of the themes of social plan, remuneration, well-being, leave, employability, hybrid working, social relevance, inclusion and diversity. Monday 23 May 2022 we discussed wages, social plan, employability, hybrid work and well-being.
Loon
Aegon's letter of commitment did not yet contain a wage offer. The reason for this was that Allegra van Hövell-Patrizi and Boaz Magid of Aegon Netherlands first wanted to inform us about Aegon's (financial) situation. This explanation took place on Wednesday 11 May 2022. According to Aegon, there is no more room in terms of cost increases than a two percent wage increase per year. They propose to conclude a two-year collective labor agreement with us. In addition, a one-off amount of EUR 400 gross is available for employees up to and including scale 9 and EUR 200 gross for employees in scales 10 and higher. They also propose to organize the available space within the pay scales in such a way that the employees at the bottom of the scale grow slightly faster than the employees at the top of the scale. This within the existing budget and with the existing assessment scores.
Social plan
Aegon thinks the existing social plan is too expensive and wants to make it ten percent cheaper. As far as Aegon is concerned, the trade unions are allowed to indicate where that austerity can be found. In addition, Aegon wants to make the voluntary severance package in the social plan more attractive by increasing it to 90% of the severance payment. The term of the social plan is two years.
Other subjects
Nico Dwidjono, vitality manager at Aegon Netherlands, gave us a presentation about wellbeing at Aegon. The parties to the collective labor agreement have also made numerous proposals in this regard, and we seem to agree on that. We also discussed the proposals in the field of hybrid working, RVU and employability. Aegon will come up with a substantive response in the next round.
Continuation
The third round of negotiations is scheduled for Thursday 9 June 2022. Then we will discuss social relevance / sustainability, leave and inclusion and diversity. The trade unions therefore have to respond to the classification proposal, wage offer and proposal on Aegon's social plan. That makes your response to Aegon's proposals very welcome.
What do you think?
What do you think of Aegon Nederland's commitment to wages and the social plan? Mandy and I are curious about your opinion on this. Would you like to email us about this via emanuel.geurts@unie.nl en mandy.raijmakers@unie.nl† Thank you very much for your response!
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