‘Hot autumn’ ahead as civil service union demands 2% pay rise

Civil service union FNV Abvakabo will not cooperate with the government’s plan to cut jobs to save €6.5bn and has instead called for a 2% pay rise.

There is a ‘hot autumn’ ahead of us, union spokesman Jan Willem Dieten says in an interview with the Volkskrant.
As well as job cuts, the government plans to freeze civil service salaries next year and has already said it will force through the measure. The current national civil service pay agreement (cao) expires in January.
Action
‘Industrial action is not my preferred option but we have enough experience in it,’ Dieten said. Negotiations with home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner begin next week.
The government has not said how many jobs it wants to cut, only that the savings should reach €6.5bn. It also wants to reform redundancy law affecting civil servants.
The unions say the government should state which areas it wants to see reduced. ‘Let the cabinet decide which jobs should no longer be done. But they won’t. They just want us to do the same amount of work with fewer people,’ Dieten said.
National government employs almost 130,000 civil servants, or 4% of the workforce.