Dutch rail strike on Friday criticized as "disproportionate" by passenger association

The first in a new series of railway labor strikes scheduled by trade union FNV this Friday is a "disproportionately heavy first action to make a point,” said Freek Bos, the head of train passenger association Rover. Although the regional strike was called for the Central Netherlands area, the labor action has unsurprisingly forced national railway NS to effectively cancel all domestic trains that day.

"This strike affects the heart of our operation. A large number of trains run through the province of Utrecht," the NS wrote in a statement on Wednesday, noting that its national trains are also controlled from the Utrecht operations center. The busiest train station by passenger volume is Utrecht Centraal, which served an average of nearly 230,000 passengers per day last year, including almost 55,000 transfer passengers daily.

Rover pointed out that passengers had to contend with strikes just a few months ago, when workers at infrastructure agency ProRail carried out their own labor actions in November. This resulted in periods of delays and trains being canceled. While the FNV plan came as a surprise to Rover, the reaction from the NS was unsurprising, Bos said. He also pointed out that the strike will ensure that “all train traffic will immediately come to a standstill, as the heart of the train service will be affected.”

The strike is due to a breakdown in negotiations between the FNV and the NS. The trade union is pushing for a 4 percent wage increase for all workers on March 1, 2025, and March 1, 2026. The NS feels that these demands are too high.

Rover said that they would rather see “passenger-friendly action being taken in which the trade union can still demand attention to their cause. Another alternative could be to stop working for a short while or to have trains run with delays,” the association said in a statement.

The interest group said it understands that the trade unions are negotiating for a better collective bargaining agreement. But "to immediately shut down the entire country as a first action is disproportionate.” The NS workers in the central region of the country are responsible for the management, and scheduling of all NS trips in the Netherlands.

Dutch travel association ANWB said that they do not expect the roads to be very busy due to the strike. There are usually very few traffic jams on Friday, a spokesperson for the organization said.

Although a few roads may have traffic jams on Friday, this is more due to the start of the Pentecost holiday weekend than the train strike. ANWB is expecting most traffic jams to occur in Noord-Brabant and Gelderland on Friday afternoon.

The peak in delays will be between 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. The rainy weather could also contribute to the traffic, Dutch infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat previously warned.