Nationwide 24-hour transport strike to go ahead as unions rally

Thousands of public sector workers are expected to rally in The Hague on Tuesday against the cabinet’s social security cuts, a day before a 24-hour strike halts all trains, buses, trams and metros across the country.

Staff from councils, provinces, ministries, water boards and universities will march to the finance ministry behind a mock golden coach, a week before the real one carries the king on Prinsjesdag.

Union federation FNV said the coach carries a briefcase of alternative plans for the cabinet. Home care and nursing home staff are also taking part, and The Hague’s street cleaners are on strike.

“This cabinet keeps putting the bill on ordinary people,” FNV chairman Hans Spekman said in a statement. “The social safety net we have all paid into for years is being dismantled.”

No trains on Wednesday
The rally is the second of three days of action this week. Dockers in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Zeeland walked out on Friday, and on Wednesday public transport stops for 24 hours.

NS is running no regular trains at all. The only exception is the airport sprinter between Amsterdam Centraal, Schiphol and Hoofddorp, which will run four times an hour.

International services, including Eurostar, ICE, Eurocity and the NightJet, will not run within the Netherlands, nor will the regional trains to Antwerp and Aachen. It is the first nationwide 24-hour public transport strike since May 2019, when unions walked out over the state pension age.

Back to normal on Thursday
NS expects to run its normal timetable on Thursday but is advising passengers to check the NS app shortly before departure. Its refund scheme for delays applies on strike days, although a separate allowance for alternative transport was scrapped earlier this year.

FNV called the strike in July as part of its campaign against plans to shorten unemployment benefit and cut payments for the long-term sick and disabled.

Social affairs minister Hans Vijlbrief has since dropped a plan to raise the state pension age faster in line with life expectancy, and the cabinet has scrapped part of the remaining cuts and delayed others, according to the Telegraaf. The unions say most of the savings are still on the table.