Rats, pigeons, and seagulls will be happy; trash cans are about to overflow in Amsterdam.
The strike is on as city cleaning staff, including garbage collectors, will stop working for seven days from today morning in Amsterdam, reports NU.nl.
Garbage collectors are on strike all week to enforce a 12% wage increase over a period of one year.
Due to rising costs and inflation, the trade union, FNV, also demands inflation compensation in next year’s collective labour agreement.
What’s to come
The municipality warns of the mess ahead of us. No household waste, such as residual and organic waste, glass, paper/cardboard, or textiles, will be collected. 🫣
In addition, the streets will also not get swept. Other cities in the Netherlands, including Utrecht, Rotterdam, and The Hague, gave us a preview of the garbage-swarming streets with their one-week strike last week.
Be prepared
The municipality in Amsterdam calls on citizens to keep their waste indoors as much as possible during the strike and to not put garbage bags or containers out on the road.
The municipality made a statement to Het Parool, saying that this “ensures that the streets remain free, that it does not become unsafe and that we do not suffer from vermin.”
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On the other hand, daily markets will be cleaned at the end of the day. During the strike, supervision and enforcement employees will be on the street, but will not issue tickets to offenders.
Coming up next: municipal officials in Maastricht and Den Bosch will strike on from Wednesday, which could cause serious problems with the mess made after Carnival.
What do you think about this strike? Tell us in the comments below!
