Striking Dutch healthcare workers speak about first ever nationwide strike
Dutch healthcare workers held their first ever nationwide strike on November 20, after endless union-led “negotiations” and numerous regional strikes—25 this year alone—led them nowhere concerning their pressing demands on improved working conditions and better wages.
Across the country, an estimated 150,000 workers at 119 healthcare facilities worked “Sunday shifts,” when only emergencies are treated, and organised public actions.
WSWS reporters attended the national rally called at Jaarbeurs Square in Utrecht, the Netherlands’ fourth largest city, by the Federation of Dutch Unions (FNV), together with the Federation of Christian Unions (CNV) and the New Union ’91 (NU’91). Copies of a WSWS statement on the strike and the way forward for healthcare workers were distributed to the approximately 2,000 workers from across the Netherlands who attended the rally.
Anniek described her working conditions, saying, “They’re bad: A lot of work for a little bit of money.”
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/23/dutc-n23.html
