Cops to get 8.5 percent wage increase in new collective agreement

After months of negotiations and protest actions, the police unions, Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, and police chief Henk van Essen reached a collective bargaining agreement for the police. Police officers and other police employees can look forward to a wage increase of at least 8.5 percent for the period 1 January 2022 to 30 June 2024, NU.nl reports.

The negotiators also made agreements on "vitality and sustainable employability, working differently and mobility, capacity and deployability, and career prospects," the unions said. They are satisfied with the agreement. "This does justice to all people who work for the police and also the extra hard work of police officers in an uncertain time."

The agreement will now be presented to the union members and will be officially implemented once they agree. All police actions are hereby discontinued. Over the past months, the police stopped fining minor offenses, for example. 

"This agreement is more than deserved and with a term of 2.5 years also offers security for police officers," Minster Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said. According to her, the pandemic highlighted the structural understaffing of the police and the massive demands society makes on police officers. "At the same time, I have seen everywhere that police officers have a very big 'blue heart' for the work they do."