National Meeting: What to do with CAO 2023?

Online public meeting about the draft agreement for the new Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) 2022-2023, open to ALL UNION MEMBERS AND UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES: Wednesday 25th May, 17.00

The Dutch trade unions in higher education came to a draft collective labour agreement (CAO) with the universities last week. It does not offer an acceptable way forward to address the precarious position of university workers on temporary contracts, especially for Docenten. It only mentions a shared ambition to conduct a “joint study” of the issue, results of which to be discussed in 2023. No commitments have been made by the employers about the speed or scale of this study, or the nature of the actions they aim to take once the research has been carried out.

This is yet another failure to address the concerns of the most precarious members of academic staff in the national labour agreement. Such a proposal will only delay addressing the exploitative working conditions and thus will continue to reproduce overwork and unsafe working environments for those in on temporary contracts. Some disillusioned staff members are already calling for all union members to vote down the agreement in its current form.

Union members, action groups, and employees need to come together to discuss the proposed CAO and decide how to position ourselves towards it. Casual Academy and 0.7 are calling a public meeting open to all university employees on Wednesday 25th May, 17.00 (https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/61749990666?pwd=YzBjcUdEai9COEU3b3NhMVQ2Z09Fdz09). We will discuss the current agreement on the table, our collective response to it, and further steps to take.