We depend on trains in the Netherlands for business and pleassure. So, we dread this time of the year when the unions strikes and much of the maintenance is done on the rail system. Sure enough, we got an email from the NS, the Dutch national train service, announcing nationwide rail strikes starting Friday, 6 June.
Now, we just got another email stating the transit workers union will go on strike Tuesday, 10 June in Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Zeeland en West-Brabant. Which means service will be suspended nationwide.
According to the email, there will be no NS trains running Tuesday anwhere in the entire country though international service will continue.That’s a real problem because as we pointed out last week, about 600,000 people take NS trains daily.
In past years, the NS offered buses as an alternative during strikes, but not this year. There will be no alternative transportation, according to the NS emails.
Here’s more bad news from the email:
Earlier, unions FNV and CNV announced they would strike in the southwest of the Netherlands on Tuesday. Trade union VVMC reported on sunday that it will also strike next Tuesday in most of North Holland. Unions have announced more regional strikes for the coming period. Given current developments, it is uncertain what the impact of these will be.
Talks with NS broke down in May, according to media reports.
The rail worker’s union is threatening additional rail strikes on Tuesday, then 12 and 16 June if the NS doesn’t back off it’s position. The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) is the union for transportation workers and represents more than 1.1 million members, the largest trade union in the country. So this could be a real nightmare.
The only good news for commuters is that uring the strike, trains will still run between between Amsterdam Cenntrall and Schiphol Airport. A Sprinter (local train) will run four times an hour in both directions between Amsterdam Centraal and Hoofddorp via Schiphol Airport. At this time, it’s not clear whether international train service will be affected.
We’ve been living in the Netherlands (Dispatches’ HQ is Eindhoven) long enough to know this is a yearly dance, with the union blaming NS executives for bargaining in bad faith, and the NS accusing workers of being greedy. Usually the two sides come to terms after the first rail strike, but not this year. Usually, the issues are retirement ages and working conditions. This year, it’s pay.
This is from the FNV website.
NS wants to conclude a very cheap collective labor agreement for next to nothing. It seems that the management thinks that their loyal staff should finance public transport themselves. NS offers a wage increase of 2.55 percent on a twelve-month basis. That is well behind inflation, while the collective labor agreement wages have been more than 5 percent behind inflation since 2019. The NS staff is extra angry because the Board of Directors has achieved a wage increase of more than 20,000 euros per year in 2024. It seems that those who are closest to the fire, warm themselves best.
What we don’t understand is how the Dutch train fares are among most expensive in Europe along with Norway and Austria, yet the NS has trouble retaining workers. Also, we’ve always heard that trains are powered by wind energy. And indeed, the NS website claims it’s the first train operator in the world to operate solely on green energy, but that includes natural gas. Still, fuel costs are nearly nil.
NS is state-owned and service is subsidized, but rail infrastructure is maintained by ProRail, which was split off in 2003 as a private company.
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See posts about previous rail strikes here in Dispatches’ archives.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
