The plan is to strike in relay form next week, with strikes taking place at various locations per day, says trade union FNV.
Earlier this week, an ultimatum that the union had issued to employers’ organizations BMK and BK expired. They have not responded to all the demands of the union, which has stalled the negotiations. The main stumbling block remains the workload.
‘Employers don’t want to listen’
So it’s time for action. “Because, despite all the signals and arguments we have given, the employers do not want to listen to us and do not want to take concrete measures,” says Debbie van Leiden, FNV director of Childcare, to RTL Z.
According to the union, the high workload causes many sick. People feel that they have to deliver assembly line work and spend too much time on administration. As a result, they cannot focus on the development of the children, says Van Leiden.
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‘Need more staff’
According to the union, a good solution to tackle this problem is to hire more staff. “You could also take on a group help so that they can also take away a number of tasks,” says Van Leiden.
In addition, making a fixed roster can significantly reduce the workload, so that people know where they stand. The union also wants to get rid of so-called on-call services, she says.
According to FNV, the employers do not even want to discuss these proposals. In the meantime, the employers have offered to investigate roster systems. There is also a relatively favorable wage offer on the table, which includes a wage increase of 3.5 percent over one and a half years and an increase in the year-end bonus.
Yet that is not enough, says FNV. “We are not concerned with the wage offer. We are really concerned with concrete measures to reduce the workload,” says Van Leiden.
Employers do recognize that a high workload is experienced and this was also prominent on the agenda during the collective labor agreement negotiations, according to industry organization BK in a message on their website. But according to BK, this is not a problem that can be solved through the collective labor agreement.
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Annoying for parents
The announced strikes are annoying for parents who were unable to bring their child to daycare during the lockdown. FNV understands that too, but the union still wants to continue the actions.
“I think that parents ultimately have no interest in the workload remaining so high. Because more and more employees will leave childcare as a result,” says Van Leiden. As a result, children also have to deal with new employees every time, which is ultimately not good for the quality of the care and therefore for the child, she says.
Today, childcare employees are meeting in Nieuwegein to determine how the strike will take place. In addition to full-day work stoppages, punctuality measures and work stoppages of a few hours are also on the table.
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