Teaching staff demand higher salary at demonstration
Wages must go up! This demand was clearly audible today in the Olympic Stadium at the FNV manifestation #NLverdientBeter. “We will therefore soon be coming up with a substantial wage demand,” warns AObchairman Tamar van Gelder.
statue: AOb
“We want good compensation for inflation,” says Van Gelder. “For the teaching staff, of course, but also for our students who are now sometimes without one filled stomach whether appropriate shoes come to school. Children cannot learn under those conditions.”
hence de AOb is present with a large delegation in the Olympic Stadium for the FNV manifestation #NLdeservesBetter to reinforce. Peter den Hartog, history teacher at VMBO de Meerpaal in Rotterdam climbs on behalf of the AOb the stage. “In Rotterdam, one in five children grows up in poverty,” he says. “Children come to school without breakfast and with almost empty lunch boxes. I teach proud teenagers: they don't talk about poverty.” Den Hartog is worried about his students. They don't get help with their homework. Parents have to work more to pay the bills. I am here today for an affordable home and sufficient wages to pay the energy bill.”
I am also satisfied with the school, the children are nice: should I leave my school for the salary?
It is striking that the teaching staff who traveled to Amsterdam today are not the first to mention their own salary as motivation. “I think the quality of education should be improved by smaller classes,” says an English teacher from Het Gooi. “More first-graders should also be placed in scale LC.” He himself has been a first-grader for three years, but his salary remains stuck in LB. “I am also satisfied with the school, the children are nice: should I leave my school for this”, he wonders.
For seven years I had to take a few months off every so often because I didn't get a permanent contract
A group of university lecturers also does not mention the salary as the first argument for demonstrating. “All those must come to an end flexible contracts in higher education”, says a scientist who has been affiliated with Utrecht University and VU University Amsterdam in recent years. “For seven years I had to take a few months off every so often because I didn't get a permanent contract. When I was looking for a rental home in Amsterdam with a colleague, we basically met the requirements to qualify for a rental home in the private sector, but there were always people with better papers.” In the end, the 33-year-old university lecturer found a house, but with a friend with 'better papers'.
Destruction
A colleague who works for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen as an English teacher has been given a permanent contract after six years, but is tired of well-trained colleagues leaving again and again, while the work continues. “It is destruction of experience.”
Joep van Dijk, a student in Amsterdam, summarizes the sense of solidarity on the FNV stage as follows: “Flex contracts are being abused. Students sink into debt. Unite, join: become a member of the union.”
Together we stand stronger!
