Collective agreement reached at container company following wildcat strike

At the start of 2006, the Allied Unions (FNV Bondgenoten) reached a collective agreement in principle at Europe Container Terminals (ECT), a container operator based at the Port of Rotterdam. However, the trade union members did not favour the proposed level of flexibility and rejected the agreement. A wildcat strike followed immediately in response to a revised agreement. The court deemed the strike unlawful and instructed the union to consult its membership properly. In December 2006, following a referendum, a narrow majority of the FNV Bondgenoten membership base approved the revised collective agreement.

Flexibility demands

At the beginning of 2006, the management board of Europe Container Terminals ( ECT), a container transshipment company based at the Port of Rotterdam, and the Allied Unions (FNV Bondgenoten) reached a collective agreement in principle for ECT’s 2,000 employees. At first, the trade union considered it a gilt-edged agreement. The proposal for the new collective agreement, tabled by the company’s management board, exceeded conditions for the rest of the harbour and, in some respects, even exceeded FNV Bondgenoten’s demands.

However, ECT made one critical demand in exchange for its financial generosity: the employees had to be prepared to work on a more flexible basis. This meant that the employees would be on call for one out of every four weeks: accordingly, they would only be informed of which shift they would be working that day in the early morning, making it impossible to plan any other activities during such a week. By adopting this approach, the company hoped to cope with the dips and, more importantly, peaks in the weekly workload. A more costly approach involving temporary employees and overtime bonuses is currently used during peak periods.

Compromise agreement

The more activist-oriented members of the workforce did not welcome a demand for flexibility of this type, having already had some experience of such demands in the past. At a membership meeting organised to consider the agreement, FNV Bondgenoten realised that it would have to return to the negotiating table since the agreement in principle was deemed unacceptable. While the financial package was welcomed, the flexibility component had to be abandoned.

Thus, the trade union returned to the management board with the task of retaining the financial component while withdrawing the new schedule for flexibility. It took several months to reach a new agreement in principle. The results emerged at the end of October 2006: the new schedule would only apply to employees who joined the company after 2004. Moreover, this flexible strategy would only be used to cope with moderate cyclical fluctuations. Overtime and the deployment of temporary employees would still be used for the most serious peaks in workload.

However, at a subsequent union meeting, these negotiation results were also considered unacceptable. The workers feared that, within no time, the requirements for newly appointed employees would soon become functional requirements for more senior employees as well.

Wildcat strike

The union organised a wildcat strike lasting several days and as a result the ECT management board appealed to the courts. The court ruled the strike unlawful and instructed FNV Bondgenoten to consult its entire membership base. It would become clearer through a referendum rather than a meeting whether the members backed the new negotiation results. In the end, a narrow majority of 52% of the 1,300 trade union members voted in favour of the new collective agreement.

Marianne Grünell, Hugo Sinzheimer Institute (HSI)