CNV opens the 2027 pay round: 3% to 5.5% more, and 25 cents a kilometre for the commute
CNV wants wages up 3% to 5.5% next year, built on 2.8% inflation and 2.5% productivity growth, and a 25-cent-a-kilometre travel allowance in every collective agreement. FNV follows on Monday.
The opening bid for next year’s pay round is on the table: CNV wants wages to rise by 3% to 5.5% in 2027, and it wants every collective agreement to pay at least 25 cents a kilometre for the drive to work.
The union published its demand on Friday morning, the traditional kick-off of the collective bargaining season in the days before the budget. FNV, the larger federation, follows on Monday. Between them the 2 set the tone for hundreds of sector and company agreements covering most of the country’s employees.
How the number is built
CNV’s arithmetic is explicit. It expects inflation of 2.8% next year and productivity growth of 2.5%, and it wants workers to be paid for both. “If employees contribute to higher productivity and growth, they must share in it too,” said chair Hans van den Heuvel. The bottom of the range covers the cost of living; the top adds a share of the growth.
The framing is pointed at The Hague as much as at employers. “Working people must not be the ones paying the bill again,” Van den Heuvel said. “Certainly not at a time when the cabinet is already hitting them so hard.” That is a reference to the cuts to unemployment and disability benefits that brought public transport to a halt on Wednesday, in a strike the same union helped call.
25 cents a kilometre
The second demand is the one most people will feel first. Two thirds of workers depend on a car to get to work, the union says, and 4 in 5 are paying more out of their own pocket for the commute than they used to. 40% say the fuel price makes it harder to get by. Fuel has been expensive since the Strait of Hormuz was all but closed by the war around Iran, and the pump price has not come down.
Employers can already reimburse 25 cents a kilometre tax-free, but only 5% of workers actually receive that much, according to CNV. It wants the tax-free maximum to become the floor in every agreement. “You go to work to earn money, not to pay money,” Van den Heuvel said.
Care, leave and burnout
The third item is not about money at all, or not directly. The union wants agreements on informal care, fully paid parental leave and tailored arrangements for workers who are temporarily overwhelmed, arguing that the combination of high workload with care for small children and ageing parents is what sits behind rising sick leave. “Healthy work does not start with the company doctor once someone has already dropped out,” Van den Heuvel said. “It starts at the bargaining table.”
What happens next
The central demand is a starting point. The actual figure will differ by sector and by company, and it will be negotiated against employers who published their own agenda for 2027 the same morning. FNV publishes its own demand on Monday. On Tuesday the cabinet presents the 2027 budget, which sets the tax and benefit numbers that both sides will be bargaining around.
For anyone on a Dutch payroll, the practical version is this: if your sector’s agreement expires in 2027, the number your union walks in with is somewhere between 3% and 5.5%, and the commute is on the table.
