Attention travelers! No new NS strikes in the coming days

Photo: ANP

There seems to be movement again in the collective labor agreement conflict at NS. The CNV union is accepting the invitation from the rail carrier to resume negotiations. The union promises not to announce any new strikes until Wednesday.

It is not yet clear whether other unions will join in.

CNV negotiator Henk Jongsma calls the new wage offer from NS a step in the right direction. "We are certainly not there yet, but it does offer an opening for a new discussion," he says. According to CNV, it is positive that NS has also made a better proposal for the heavy work scheme.

The railway company has invited the unions for a meeting on Tuesday. CNV is keeping open the possibility that the collective labour agreement negotiations will start on Monday.

Last week, the unions FNV, CNV and VVMC stopped working to put pressure on the negotiations on a new collective labour agreement for some 17,500 NS employees. During the third day of the strike, NS came up with an improved proposal.

FNV then indicated that it wanted to resume talks with NS, but at the same time wanted to continue organizing strikes. According to the union, the wage offer did not offer sufficient improvement. The largest union at NS, VVMC, announced that it would study the offer, but was, in its own words, "not very impressed."

NS is now proposing a 3.25 percent pay rise for this year. Previously, it was 2.55 percent. In addition, there is a proposal for a 2.75 percent pay rise as of March 1, 2026. In the previous collective labor agreement, which expired on March 1, NS employees received an average increase of 6.6 percent.

By comparison, in 2022, staff also successfully struck for better wages, achieving a pay rise of over 9 percent.

There will be no strike on Monday. Unions must announce strikes by Friday afternoon at the latest, and that did not happen this time. Whether there will be further action on Tuesday depends on the further course of the talks.