Wildcat strikes against railway organisation plan

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September 2000 saw a number of wildcat strikes by employees at Dutch Railways (NS) against management's latest plans to streamline the organisation. The largest rail workers' union, Allied Unions, did not officially support the strikes.

In September 2000, dissatisfaction among employees at Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS) once again manifested itself in the form of wildcat strikes (as it had done earlier in the year - NL0001177N). Supported by both the Amsterdam Engine Drivers' Collective (Amsterdams Machinisten Kollektief, AMK) and the Zutphen Personnel Collective (Zutphens Personeels Collectief, ZPC), activists blockaded the NS offices, preventing personnel from gaining access to the building.

The discontent focused on NS management's "Destination Customer" organisation plan, whose provisions include streamlining duty rosters in a bid further to reduce delays in train traffic. If implemented, the plan would mean that engine drivers and conductors would operate permanently on the same routes. The protesters object that collective knowledge of the train network would thereby be reduced and driving could become boring, while aggression directed at conductors (the cause of earlier disputes), particularly prevalent on certain routes, would always affect the same people. The activists state that some of their colleagues have gone so far as to move in order to avoid such customer aggression.

Although representatives of the Allied Unions (FNV Bondgenoten) - the Netherlands' largest trade union and the largest rail workers' union - were present at the strikes, it did not officially support them. Indeed, at the time it was presented, the management plan was accepted by a majority of employees. Despite showing understanding for the strike, the trade union gave its approval at the time and cannot now distance itself from that decision.

The causes underlying dissatisfaction among NS employees may be seen as a result of the delayed implementation of a number of agreements included in the management organisation plan. Since new equipment has not been purchased, trains can no longer be checked every day, but every second day instead. Some 150 extra trains and 10% more conductors are needed, according to the activists. Coupled with this, NS is confronted with absence rates of some 20% among conductors. The NS plan provided for 400 new conductors and a further 400 supervisory conductors, but filling these vacancies has been extremely slow. Of 6,000 applicants, 380 have been taken on, and the recruitment procedures, for which a national campaign was launched in spring 2000, took up to two months in some cases. Some applicants even received a negative response stating that there were no vacancies at NS. According to the trade unions, the works council and the conductors, the company itself is partly to blame for the current staff shortages. However, they believe that the recruitment delays form part of the company's strategy: a major restructuring is planned for 2001 and operations on part of the network will have to be subcontracted in 2003. In time, NS therefore expects to be able to operate with fewer employees. However, NS management rejects such suspicions.