De Unie, in your interest

Your collective labor agreement and industry

Holland Casino: Vote on negotiation result

January 04 2021

Just before the turn of the year, we shared the main points of the outcome of the collective labor agreement discussions and the additions to the social plan with you. As promised you will find here we request and request the entire content of the result de Uniemembers to vote. But first we would like to briefly explain a number of things.

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High

The term and wages

The entire covid pandemic is hitting Holland Casino hard. The damage can be limited with the help of the national support measures (NOW). This naturally placed the negotiations on a new collective labor agreement in a special light. Instead of an annoying discussion about the simplification of employment conditions, we managed to reach agreements on an - albeit modest - increase in wages of 1,5% structural and 0,75% one-off (with a chance of structural).

Retirement 

Many pensions are under pressure due to the persistently low interest rate. This has also been felt with HC for a long time and finding a solution for this - other than increasing the premiums enormously - is not easy. It has been decided to convert the partner's pension to a risk-based partner's pension from 1 February 2021. The accrual of the old-age pension will therefore remain at the current level of 1,4%. In addition, the new national pension agreement may also require adjustments. We will therefore continue to talk about this topic in the coming period.

Roasting

This is a topic that continues to require attention. HC recently commissioned a study into, among other things, the weight of the rosters, working at night and the 24/7 situations. De Unie considers it important that the results of this research will be further discussed between unions and HC. After all, health is also an important theme within the 'freedom' of VGR. Not only now, but also in the future.

Multifunctionality

Holland Casino wants to focus more on flexibility / multifunctionality of employees. Such decisions are taken on the basis of the WOR in consultation with the works council. Agreements must be made about the employment conditions. Our commitment has always been that this should NOT lead to austerity measures for current employees. For example, compensatory agreements have been made in time for the break scheme (now the same for everyone) and for croupiers an important part of the tronc scheme (9 shares) is converted into a bonus on the wage (9 x 0,75% = 6,75 %). We will determine a new calculation method for the remaining tronc share (now the same for everyone).

Supplements social plan

Ordered before De Unie this has been a very important part of the discussions. After all, by allowing generous voluntary departure as an instrument, forced redundancies can be avoided as much as possible. This has worked well in the past and is therefore very important now. Initially, HC indicated that it did not want to make use of this. Too complicated and delaying. But they couldn't convince us with that. In the end we managed to convince HC and make agreements about VVR. Initially only within 'own age cohorts' and later on a little more extensively (including so-called adjacent age cohorts).

We were always slightly less enthusiastic about the also agreed placement scheme (PMR) than about the VVR. We think this tool is simply less effective. After all, the control lies mainly with HC itself and the instrument can only be used after it has been established who is or is not redundant. Nevertheless, we think that this instrument can be an excellent addition to the VVR. And that is the case now.

Point of view De Unie and voting advice

It is a strange time for us as a trade union to have to negotiate a collective labor agreement. Throughout the corona pandemic, many old certainties have become very uncertain. This certainly also applies to the situation within HC. We don't have to tell you about that. We have taken stock in consultation with the executives.

The conclusion is that we are satisfied with the result achieved. Not a 'hand-in operation', but a few steps 'ahead'. A modest wage increase and in the context of multifunctionality we have been able to guarantee the terms of employment of the current employees.

We would have liked to have made agreements for the current croupiers about compensation of the tronc shares in 2020. Despite repeated insistence, HC turned out not to be willing to do this. However, due to the agreement made about the expiry of 9 tronc shares, a large part will actually be repaired again from November 6,75 with the structural compensation of 2020% (payment in January is normally November 2020).

The additions to the social plan are also positive. As few forced redundancies as possible has always been our motto. We would also have liked to have made agreements about a Voluntary Adjustment of Working Hours (BIK). Actually a kind of mini VVR. Unfortunately, we have not (yet) been able to convince HC of this.

In addition to the positive feeling, we also have some points of concern. For example, we believe that when the position of croupier becomes more multi-functional, attention must be and remain focused on quality. In addition, now that the number of tronc shares has been reduced from 10 to 1, there must still be sufficient incentive to continue to generate tronc. De Unie raised both points in the negotiations and demanded extra attention for them.

Negotiation is also about seeking compromises and making concessions. That is what we have consistently done in recent months - in close consultation with the executives. There is now a package of agreements that we - given the special times in which we now live - are quite satisfied with. For now this seems like the maximum achievable result. If the corona pandemic is over after this CLA period and it is undoubtedly better with HC, then we may be able to make more - and better - agreements. For now, we are therefore introducing this package of agreements with positive voting advice de Uniemembers for. 

To vote

We would like to ask all Union members to cast his / her vote. The more members vote, the more representative the outcome. De Uniemembers have received an invitation to vote. You can vote until January 12, 2021.

So much for this post. If you have any questions, please contact us or one of the executives. As soon as the results are known, we will hear from us again.

 

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