
In this Newsletter I will update you on the fourth collective labor agreement negotiation day. Central themes that were discussed in particular were wages and the design of your new job house with an external appeals committee.
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During this meeting we considered all the topics that the employer and the unions have brought up. It is becoming clear which parts we will find each other on and which we will not, or not yet. Each other's wish lists never match each other and ultimately it is about a total package in which the parties can find themselves. You as a member are part of one of those parties. The members ultimately determine whether the collective labor agreement negotiation result is good enough.
Loon
With regard to wages, the employer has taken a step. After some intermediate steps, at the end of the day the employer's offer was 3% structurally as of January 1, 2025 and another 1% structurally as of July 1, 2025. Ultimately, you will then receive an increase of 4%. Because you only receive the 1% in the second half, this means an improvement of your income in 2025 of 3,5%, but from July 1 and the years thereafter 4%. This applies to employees who are not affected by the reorganization. Employees who leave MN in the first half of 2025 will benefit from the 3%, but not from the final composite 4%.
Although the employer has taken a good step, we find the wage offer too meager. De Unie asks for a correction of your inflation deficit and the improvement of purchasing power. We are prepared to go along with the idea that the entire deficit cannot be made up now. But the 4% may not even repair inflation before 2025, let alone that there will be any catch-up in purchasing power.
Space
The employer states that there is no more room to structurally increase costs. We may then find a creative solution that everyone can agree on. But for the time being, our position remains that the wage offer is too meager.
Function house
De Unie issued a clear position on the revision of the job classification system at the beginning of March. Our position was: 'we want to be involved in the creation of choices'. We emphasized that informing is not enough, but that we want to achieve modernization/improvement of the job classification in a joint process. For De Unie it is essential that a good external appeals committee for job evaluation is ultimately established.
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Complaints Committee
This means that an employee who has objections first discusses them with his manager according to a procedure. If this does not lead to the desired insight, the employee can appeal to an internal objection committee. If there is still a difference of opinion, the employee can appeal to the expertise of an external objection committee.
Continuation
We have agreed to schedule a separate meeting for the next collective labor agreement negotiation day on December 11, where we will discuss the job house and a proposal for an improved objection procedure. This theme is so subject-specific that we do not find it useful to settle these themes at a detailed level during the collective labor agreement negotiations.
Let us know!
Once again, if you have an opinion, a question, a comment, or if you simply want to give a signal about what you think of the employer's salary offer, for example, let the advocate Joe Voesten know.