Trade union CNV has just sent an ultimatum to Villeroy & Boch. Despite fine operating results, the Roden (Dr.)-based sanitaryware manufacturer, best known in the Netherlands for its bathroom and toilet interiors, refuses a decent wage increase for its 100 or so employees. "We know this trick from last year," says CNV's Stijn Duursma. "Back then the employer just got away with it. Now I'm not so sure."
By sending an ultimatum, unions are giving the employer one last chance to come up with an improved final offer. If Villeroy & Boch does not do so today, Thursday 14 November, the unions will be free to organise actions such as work stoppages or longer strikes.
Villeroy and Boch's head office.
Own housekeeping
"Last year, the employer also let it come to this," Duursma recalls. "Then, too, Villeroy & Boch put a very poor wage offer on the table that the management did not want to negotiate. Just before the first work stoppage, they came up with a small improvement, hoping employees would see it as a win. Out of loyalty to their company, but with some reluctance, they did indeed agree to it. I don't believe they are going to do that a second time. These people are so far behind inflation that they now have their own household budgets as their primary concern."
CNV wants 10.9%
Villeroy and Boch's lousy final offer was therefore unanimously rejected by CNV members this week. And all voted for action. In today's ultimatum, CNV demands 8.9% inflation correction from 1 July 2024 with a 2% purchasing power adjustment on top. In comparison, the employer's final offer is a structural wage increase of 3% from 1 July 2024 and 3% from 1 July 2025. "Far less, and again too little to even compensate for inflation," Duursma says.
Turnover over billion
"Management talks about higher costs, challenging market environment, geopolitical tensions and an economically tough German home market," the CNV negotiator continued. "But that's all hard to believe when you see that in 2024 they will have achieved sales above billion for the first time, in addition to an operating profit of 64.5 million. So apparently the purchasing power of the people who make that possible has to give way to that."
Villeroy and Boch miscalculates
Duursma can hardly believe employees will agree to that again this year, even if the employer raises its wage offer slightly at the last minute. "I think Villeroy and Boch is wrong if they think their people will once again facilitate their own decline in purchasing power," he says. "In any case, CNV members are gearing up for action."
More information:
CNV
www.cnv.nl