NS employees are striking again on Tuesday due to dissatisfaction with their wages. No trains are running in the provinces of Flevoland, Gelderland, Noord-Holland, and a large part of Overijssel.
The strike begins in the night from Monday to Tuesday at 4:00 AM. Trains will start running again in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday from 4:00 AM.
To allow trains to run as much as possible in the rest of the country, NS has adjusted the timetable. The carrier warns that the strike will also have consequences for the rest of the Netherlands.
Unions FNV and VVMC have called for the strike because NS is not offering a higher wage bid. The unions and employees are dissatisfied with the latest offer from the carrier. They also want better agreements on working conditions.
“The management of NS only wants to meet with the unions again if the actions are suspended, but offers virtually nothing new in return. We find that unacceptable,” says FNV director Henri Janssen.
Strikes have already occurred several times
NS personnel have already laid down their work several times in recent weeks. For example, significantly fewer trains ran on Friday. Three days earlier, all train traffic was at a standstill. Janssen says that the action next Tuesday may not be the last and that there may be national strikes again.
NS initially came with a wage increase of 2.55 percent and recently increased that to 3.25 percent, but the unions still consider that insufficient. They point out that inflation, according to statistics bureau CBS, is 3.3 percent and that the staff would therefore also be worse off with the improved offer.
NS and the unions met again on Monday, but that did not lead to a solution. It was then decided to strike again. NS is extremely disappointed about this. “We would have liked this to be different and I think it’s worthless that our travelers are being affected again,” says CEO Wouter Koolmees.
The company is reluctant to raise wages because it has been making losses for years. The company also expects to be in the red this year, according to Koolmees.