Civil service unions are to meet on Monday to discuss possible industrial action following the breakdown of pay talks for provincial and local officials and water board staff.

Employers have called for a virtual pay freeze across the board for the next 19 months to two years because of the ‘precarious financial position’ facing local government, news agency ANP reports.
‘Ministers have to find savings of €35bn and some of that will be passed on to local government,’ Bas Verkerk of the Dutch local authorities association VNG told the NRC. ‘So it is only reasonable that pay increases are put on hold.’
Job guarantees
The VNG had earlier offered 180,000 local government civil servants a 1% rise over two years and job guarantees. ‘As far as we are concerned, work has priority over higher pay,’ Verkerk said.
Regional civil servants have been offered 1.2% over 19 months. ‘A structural pay rise at the moment would be irresponsible,’ the provincial employers organisation IPO said on its website.
The unions are calling for a pay rise of 1.5%.
The recession-busting agreement worked out between unions and employers last year included the proviso that pay rises be in line with inflation to maintain spending power.