Social affairs minister Hans Vijlbrief has promised to come up with revised benefit reforms within weeks after unions threatened to take action unless proposed budget cuts were taken off the table.
Three of the largest trade unions, FNV, CNV and FCP said on Monday they would use “the full repertoire of actions”, including strikes, if the cuts were not scrapped within 14 days.
The centre-right cabinet of D66, CDA and VVD wants to raise the retirement age faster by raising it in step with projected life expectancy rather than by eight months for every extra year of life.
The coalition parties also agreed to cut the maximum term for unemployment pay from two years to one and to cut the long-term sickness benefit WIA.
Vijlbrief did not say how intended to change the cabinet’s plans, but he said he would do his best to meet the unions’ deadline of May 30. “I expect that the unions also feel a responsibility to talk about the problem.”
Eroding trust
FNV chairman Hans Spekman took an uncompromising stance on Monday, saying the unions were not prepared to negotiate “as long the plans for the [state pension] AOW, [unemployment benefit] WW and [incapacity benefit] WIA are not off the table.”
“The bill for all this cabinet’s plans is being picked up disproportionately by working people, pensioners and people on benefits,” Spekman said. “This is hitting people’s existence.”
Hans van den Heuvel, chair of the CNV, accused the government of eroding trust by breaking the multiparty agreement on pensions that was reached in 2019.
“There has hardly been any movement by the cabinet in four months,” he said. “This is not just a political dossier, it is a human one. It concerns people who stand to lose thousands of euros.”
