Plans for hospital strikes now scrapped as staff receive new collective labor agreement

A collective labor agreement for hospital workers has been reached, the trade unions CNV, FBZ, NU’91, and FNV reported. This means that the plans for a strike in April are now scrapped. The new collective labor agreement will apply to the 225,000 employees in hospitals and rehabilitation institutions. An 8 percent wage increase has been agreed. The result is yet to be presented to the union members.

The planned strikes are now “off the table for the time being,” the CNV reported. The plans were for hospital staff to go on strike throughout the country on a yet to be announced date in April.

The new collective labor agreement will run until February 1, 2027. The 8 percent wage increase will be achieved via a raise on February 1 of this year (2 percent), August 1 this year (2 percent), February 1, 2026 (2 percent), and August 1, 2026 (2 percent).

Internship fees will also rise, and talks are being held about raising the travel allowances.

There will also be an “improvement of the irregular hours allowance which also applies to Saturday mornings,” a “changing clothes allowance” and agreements on decision making and safety. In addition, there will be more possibilities to stop working at an earlier stage.

“The fact that there is now a result is thanks to the efforts of all the action committees in the hospitals. It became clear to the employers over the last few days that the willingness to act was high among the hospital staff,” CNV’s negotiator, Joost Veldt said.

“This led to them making a new offer. We were able to add several improvements to the offer, and we now have a result that we want to present to the members. The strikes have now been scrapped, and I am hearing from members that they are happy that the strikes are not necessary, in the interests of the patients.”

The FNV, FBZ, and NU’91 also reported that talks accelerated after the announcement of the nationwide strikes. “We put the employers under severe pressure with this,” said Elise Merlin, board member at FNV Zorg & Welzijn. "That was necessary because they wanted to implement deteriorations in the collective labor agreement. These have been removed with the new agreements."

FNV also reported that hospitals are going to look into implementing a 32 hour work week. They will look into “what the consequences are of reducing or increasing the usual work week (between 32 and 40 hours).”

The agreement was concluded with the Nederlandse Vereniging van Ziekenhuizen, which is the Dutch Hospital Association, the employer.