ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Cleaners at several key locations in the Netherlands including Schiphol Airport and major train stations held a week-long strike earlier this month.

FNV, the largest Dutch trade union, announced that cleaners across the country were "downing tools" in protest against the collective labour agreement that was recently finalised by the CNV trade union and the employers' organisation Schoonmakend Nederland.

Cleaners at Dutch universities were also joining in the strike while FNV called upon other operatives throughout the country to join the campaign.

The collective agreement included a 6.1 per cent pay rise over two years and also allowed cleaners to qualify more quickly for permanent contracts. However, workers want to see the removal of an income penalty during illness; automatic price compensation; further wage increases and equal allowances for hotel cleaners.

"Cleaners are normally invisible," said FNV cleaning board member Caroline Lamberts. "You mainly notice their work when it is done.

"This week we are turning that around: by not cleaning we are making visible how important their work is. People are going to experience what it means when the cleaners aren't there. That is exactly what we want to show."

More than 80 per cent of FNV members rejected the negotiated collective labour agreement and cleaners are now demanding that the deal be reopened and that their objections are listened to seriously.

A Schiphol Airport spokesperson says that while the administration respects the right to strike, the airport would do what it could to minimise disruption for both employees and travellers.