Breakthrough made in pharmacy negotiations; workers to receive a 20% wage increase

Pharmacy workers are going to experience a significant rise in salary. Their wages will be 20 percent higher by the end of 2026 than they were in July 2024. This will then be followed by another raise in 2027. This agreement was made between employers and trade unions in a framework agreement. Negotiations for a new collective labor agreement will be based on this. These negotiations will be for how the wages will increase to reach the eventual percentage.

Trade union CNV are hopeful that a new collective labor agreement will come soon. The trade union claim that the salary increase is needed to bridge the gap with other sectors.

The framework agreement also consists of other agreements. Changes will be made to how pharmacies are compensated. It is currently the case that they are paid based on the amount of medicine that they hand out. This will be changed to a compensation for the care supplied.

How this will work is something that is going to be developed over the next few years. “It is a recognition that pharmacy staff are healthcare professionals. They say: we are not sales specialists. We work in a crucial sector,” said a CNV spokesperson.

The framework agreement was reached after former minister Martin van Rijn acted as a mediator. The Cabinet had asked him to try to break the impasse in the collective labor agreement negotiations for pharmacy workers.

Pharmacy workers went on strike several times at the end of last year in order to force through a new collective labor agrement. This strikes were scrapped due to Van Rijn’s work, and that will remain the case.

Healthcare minister Fleur Agema is pleased with Van Rijn’s work. “It is a good result, and I am very happy about that,” she said after the weekly council of ministers meeting.

Agema already had 3.6 billion euros available to her ministry, so no cuts will be needed in the care budget to implement this result.

New agreements were reached in the last few weeks for home care and nursing home care, the mental health care, and the hospitals. FNV members voted against the employers' final offer regarding child care, while CNV members voted in favor.