Mobilization. While the insurance sector is doing well in the Netherlands, employees and unions don’t understand why the Association of Insurance Firms (ACA) is calling for a 50 percent cut to their June bonus and refusing to increase wages in 2012 and 2013, accepting a mere 0.25 percent increase in 2014. Negotiations were suspended in March and then resumed. Unions couldn’t accept employers’ conditions because of the concessions the government made for them, particularly the amendments to the system indexing wages to inflation (see our dispatch No. 110797), besides, unions say employees in the insurance sector are among the lowest-paid in the Netherlands. The Association of Banking and Insurance Employees (Aleba) is notably arguing that the number of bonuses per employee in the sector went up 160 percent in ten years when, at the same time, wages only increased by 20 percent. “These bonuses show that business has been going well in the sector. Yet, wages have barely increased – for 10 years, we have always been negotiating in situations of global economic crisis or afterwards” explained Aleba VP Jim Schneider.
yee in the sector went up 160 percent in ten years when, at the same time, wages only increased by 20 percent. “These bonuses show that business has been going well in the sector. Yet, wages have barely increased – for 10 years, we have always been negotiating in situations of global economic crisis or afterwards” explained Aleba VP Jim Schneider.
Agreement. The ACA and union representatives – Aleba, LCGB-SESF, the finance union affiliated with the LCGB Christian organization, and the OGBL,
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