FNV

ANP

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 18:19

• Nina Jansen

  editor Domestic

• Nina Jansen

  editor Domestic

FNV members who want to take action against international military transports to Israel do not dare to do so because they do not feel supported by their union. Berkan Kartal says this on behalf of hundreds of FNV members.

The same applies to employees who do not want to participate in economic activities that help make Israel’s war in Gaza possible. Hundreds of the approximately 877,000 FNV members are now publicly calling on the FNV to speak out against what they call “the ongoing genocide in Gaza”.

The FNV board does not want to respond substantively, but refers to statements against the war on its own website. According to the critical members, these statements are insufficient and the union does not support actions and demonstrations, while according to them the unions are normally closely involved in this.

500 mails

“Because the FNV refuses to speak out, workers who want to unite in solidarity with Palestine cannot be protected by their own union,” reads a standardized email sent by more than 500 members to the FNV board. The union previously received dozens of reports from members who did not dare to speak out against the war in their workplace, or encountered problems when they did so, an FNV employee said.

Members ask the board to take a position “in which the FNV rejects the genocide in Gaza” and supports and protects “any collective actions by trade union members”. “I now feel vulnerable if I want to speak out about the war in Gaza at a shareholders’ meeting,” says Ahold employee and FNV member Berkan Kartal. “While I know that the FNV stands behind me when it comes to statements about the climate.”

I feel vulnerable when I want to speak out.

Berkan Kartal, FNV-lid

In a response to these emails, the board writes that it has “addressed the terrible situation in various places again and again” and calls for a “permanent ceasefire, lifting the blockades and releasing the hostages”. The FNV board also says it supports “workers with questions of conscience” within the “legal options” that are “limited in labor law”.

The FNV closed previously responded to a call from seven international trade unions to comply with the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the case between South Africa and Israel. The union also asked in a letter to outgoing minister Bruins Slot to increase the financing of the aid organization UNRWA in Gaza. to resume.

‘Inadequate’

The members call the board’s response “insufficient”. “Messages on the site are difficult to find, there are no press releases and, moreover, the statements only came after members requested them,” said Kartal.

He points out that supermarket employees have not dared to join demonstrations against the sale of products from Israeli settlements in their supermarket. And that there are transport employees who want to take action against international military transports but do not dare to do so at the moment.

“As long as the FNV continues to tolerate military transports passing through Dutch airports, the response for the member collective will consist of nothing more than nice words that disguise the lack of concrete action,” the members write in their statement.

Dissatisfaction among employees

Dissatisfaction had previously arisen internally among FNV employees, including Hacer Karadeniz. “As FNV, one of our core tasks is to show international solidarity, which is why it is so striking that we do not do this publicly at the moment,” she says.

At the end of October, she sent an email to the board for the first time, calling for concrete actions to support fellow union members in Gaza. That letter was signed by 167 of more than 1,900 colleagues. More followed later.

Pension fund

The employees are also angry with the PFZW pension fund, to which the FNV is affiliated. Late last year leaked out that, despite promises to cut ties, the pension fund still invests in companies active in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which have been labeled as “illegal” by the Dutch government. A letter campaign from FNV employees with the demand that the fund “immediately withdraw from these investments” was to no avail.

The FNV employees are now turning to their own board. That writes in one statement on its website that it expects “the board of pension funds where the FNV is on the board not to directly interfere in Israel’s settlement policy, such as by investing in involved construction companies”.

According to the employees, the FNV board should force the pension fund to withdraw from the Israeli settlements. The board does not wish to respond to this in more detail and refers to the previous statement on the website.

2024-04-11 16:19:45
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