On Tuesday, March 26, 2024, the negotiator delegations met again to continue discussing a new Metalektro collective labor agreement.
Process
This second day of negotiations focused on further analyzing the submitted proposals. We asked the employers' delegation in-depth questions to find out what exactly the employers mean and the reasoning behind them introduce. This process helps to get a clear picture of each other's proposals and to start the actual negotiations. This has not yet become clear on all topics, but we have made good progress.
Salary limit for higher staff collective labor agreement
An important point for De Unie, the employers' proposal is to offer individual employers the opportunity to adjust the income limit (Article 3.2.1 HP collective labor agreement) at company level. The pain is mainly in the proposal to adjust the limit downwards. This is in contrast to the proposal of De Unie to abolish the border altogether. The employers' delegation has indicated that the employees involved can indicate whether they want this. The employers define the employees involved as employees who would be above the reduced income limit or who are already above the current limit of € 117.700.
Ordered before De Unie it is still very important to find out exactly what the background is to this proposal from employers. What need do they have? What problem does this solve? De Unie does not feel that it solves problems, but only adds problems.
Wage demand
The employers' delegation has explained that it is concerned about the inflation figures/wage demand and fears that the costs of inflation/indexation will fall unilaterally to employers. The employers' delegation was therefore very curious about how De Unie meets his wage demand.
De Unie uses a calculation to determine wage demand based on CPB figures (MEV figures September 2023 en CEP figures February 2024), whereby De Unie is based on the purchasing power figure (and not inflation). These purchasing power figures include any government measures. This means that the bill does not fall unilaterally to employers, but we all contribute because the government also takes measures to support the purchasing power of employees. This approach aims to ensure a balanced outcome for both employers and employees.
Auxiliary
The employers' delegation has proposed making separate agreements for auxiliary workers. Auxiliary workers is a new term in the collective labor agreement, which means: De Unie was very curious about the definition of auxiliary workers. The employers' delegation has indicated that auxiliary workers are employees who are not under the direct supervision of an employee and are a kind of holiday worker. They want to offer employers the opportunity to deploy them more easily, without paying them immediately in accordance with the salary structure.
De Unie will use the next negotiation day to obtain a concrete proposal from employers. To reiterate what the employers' delegation wants to achieve with this.
The next meeting
We will continue the discussion on Friday, April 12, 2024. The consultation will then discuss the content. We will therefore discuss what we think of the proposals. The approach of De Unie is that we should mainly tackle the themes and proposals where we can easily find each other, so that we first have a list of proposals that we as joint parties agree on. We can then continue discussing the matters on which we do not yet agree.
Contact
If you have a question or comment, you can email: metal@unie.nl. If you would like to speak to one of the negotiators, you can call Wicher van der Hoef on number 06-5252 2023 or Gertjan Tommel on number 06-5252 2034.
