Another NS strike paralyzes train traffic in Noord-Holland & eastern Netherlands

Due to a new union strike, no NS trains are running in Noord-Holland, Flevoland, Gelderland, and a large part of Overijssel on Tuesday. The carrier adjusted the timetable to continue running in the rest of the country as much as possible. NS warned that the strike in Noord-Holland and Oost-Nederland will also have consequences for the rest of the Netherlands.

This is the fourth strike by NS staff since June 6. NS said it was “very disappointed” that passengers had to deal with this again. “We would have wanted it differently, and I think it is worthless that our passengers are now the victims of this again,” said NS CEO Wouter Koolmees.

On Monday, the FNV union announced that the strike in the Noordwest and Oost regions would continue on Tuesday. According to the union, NS “will not pay up” in the collective bargaining agreement conflict. NS slightly increased a previous wage offer on Friday, from 2.66 percent ot 3.25 percent from March 1 this year, and another 2.75 percent on March 1 next year. FNV wants, among other things, a wage increase of 7 percent per year and wants all employees with a physically taxing job to have a decent early retirement scheme.

“The unions that are striking again are sticking to their original demands. We won’t get anywhere like this,” said Koolmees. The strike started at 4:00 a.m. and will last 24 hours.

On Monday, NS and the unions once again discussed the collective bargaining agreement. According to NS, FNV and VVMC no longer want to negotiate. “We wanted to sit down at the table to come to a good collective labor agreement for our colleagues, but you can’t negotiate on your own,” said Koolmees. He reported that NS was going to make a final offer, so that the unions could present it to their members.

The NS CEO believes that the railway company has developed a good arrangement for physically taxing work with the unions and said that employees were entitled to a wage increase that matches inflation. At the same time, NS has been making losses for five years in a row, and our company will not make a profit this year either. As a company, NS has to support itself and cannot structurally spend more than it has.”

The previous NS collective labor agreement, which expired on March 1, gave employees an average wage increase of 6.6 percent. Although negotiations were difficult at the time, there were no mass strikes. In 2022, NS staff did strike for higher wages. At that time, NS employees received an increase of over 9 percent.