Campaigners throughout the Netherlands seek each other out
Speeches, performances, debates and workshops. This morning, thousands of campaigning teachers and educational supporters gathered at action meetings throughout the Netherlands.
Image: Angeliek de Jonge
The strike meeting of the AOb in Utrecht. Some strikers brought their children to it AOb-Headquarters. “I can't sit at home on a day like that,” says educational supporter Hadassa de Feniks. "I want to make my point of view known."
“This is nice on your back and neck,” says a kindergarten teacher with a smile as she takes a seat in one of the three available massage chairs. “I've been in education for eight years and I've already had my first burnout,” she says, as the chair starts to shake. “I was out for a year and a half. I constantly had the feeling that I was behind the facts and then you feel like a bad teacher, while you do a lot of work. I could just put my bed down at school, there is so much work. ”
Video messages
Elsewhere in the country supporters and teachers also campaigned for a higher salary, lower workload and smaller classes in primary education. Under the motto 'How Arie helps you out of the doldrums', activists in the center of Groningen and Leeuwarden were allowed to record messages on a video column to Minister of Education Arie Slob. “It was used a lot,” says AObdirector Marja de Bree, who in Leeuwarden distributed chocolate milk and 'I-on-strike' tompouces to two to three hundred teachers on strike. "People feel seriously insulted."
AObdirector Marja de Bree: "People feel seriously insulted."
AObdriver Tamar van Gelder is on the way from an action meeting in Volendam to a 'flash mob' in the bus: teachers from the school board of Public Education on the Amstel sang a protest song at Amsterdam Central Station to the tune of 'the shepherd's layers were at night'. In Volendam, Van Gelder spoke with two to three hundred teachers on strike from the medium-sized school board Opspoor (37 public schools for primary and special education in the Waterland region).
The activists, including a few decked out with AObscarves, according to Van Gelder, are “certainly prepared” to continue with relay actions until Prinsjesdag, even if that means that there will be another strike: “People understand that patience will be needed.”
To do something
The meeting at the head office in Utrecht was one of ten meetings in the country that the union has organized. Around ten o'clock, more than a hundred people from primary education have gathered at the head office, while the DJ takes care of the music in the background. In a meeting room, a make-up artist prepares teachers as a 'pampering moment.'
Teacher and AObdriver Dorien König of primary school De Klimroos in Leidsche Rijn, together with her colleague Laura van der Mark, is getting ready for a run through the Utrecht city center in running outfit. Van der Mark: "We wanted to do something, but we had to check where the road is." Everyone claps when the pair indeed leave with a few other runners just before half past ten.
Brigitte de Wit and Trees Mikx both work in secondary special education (VSO). Their school is closed and half of the staff are on strike today. “Sitting at home doesn't feel good,” says De Wit. "Then you also tend to go to work anyway."
Now the school is closed again and everyone is participating. The rack is out, it is just no longer possible to find invaders this way.
Teachers Gemma Hoes (group 6) and Carla Kamp (various groups) say that all ten teachers are on strike at their public primary school De Brug in Houten. "In the first strike on October 5, there was still a few who did not participate," says Hoes. “Now the school is closed again and everyone is participating. The shelf is gone, it is simply no longer possible to find substitutes. ” It is difficult, say the teachers from Houten, to tell parents that the school will be closed again for a day, especially if you called on them the day before for the school camp or to put up the Christmas decorations.
Make a point
Teacher Moniek van der Velde (group 5) certainly wanted to attend a meeting: You have to make your point, ”she says. "I work three to four hours every weekend and could do more, but you also have to think about yourself."
In an action speech refers AObdirector Clazien Roodenburg to the great pressure on teachers. "The parties think that you are not busy enough yet," she says. “The money for work pressure relief will only become available in 2021. So you just have to keep going, is the message. But we continue: shoulder to shoulder. ”
