Court rules in favor of unions in Brinks employee strike

The court in Utrecht ruled today that the Brinks Nederland employee strike may continue at this time.

According to the judge, there is insufficient evidence of extraordinary and compelling circumstances to prohibit the actions. There are also no indications that the strike is causing unacceptable security risks.

Action coordinator Leen van der List is satisfied with the ruling. "We as union acted carefully and want to keep the pressure on the boiler."

The lawsuit was filed against the unions FNV Bondgenoten and CNV Vakmensen to ban the strike. The strike is in protest against the way that Brinks wants to reorganize.The unions called on their members to not refill the ATM's of several banks from Saturday morning. This has had the effect that more than 400 ATM's are now empty after the busy Christmas season. Rabobank, Brinks largest customer, is most affected by the strike, and ABN Amro and SNS Bank to a lesser extent.

Brinks announced a major reorganization in October. More than 600 of the 1,080 employees will lose their jobs. These redundancies follow the decision of Rabobank to go with another money transporter next year.

The unions want better agreements for the more than 600 employees who will lose their jobs. Firstly, they want Brinks to examine whether these employees can be accommodated at Brinks ore one of the money transporters that are taking over. Another possibility is that these employees will receive training for other work. As a last resort, the employees should receive a good closure proposal. Brinks and the unions will have to sit down and discuss these demands.

In a response the management of Brinks said that they are "deeply disappointed" in the ruling and they call on the unions to stop their actions at it would cause a "direct threat" to Brinks survival.