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Unions are suspending their strike action at Albert Heijn‘s distribution centres for the time being. They will return to the table to negotiate a new collective agreement, following an improved offer from the retailer.
Additional concessions
Activity at Albert Heijn’s distribution centres resumes on Thursday, following strike action that lasted a week and a half. The unions are ready to come back to the table following an improved offer from Albert Heijn. The supermarket chain had proposed a 10% pay rise earlier this week. That was not enough for the activists at the time.
Now the company is making additional concessions: among other things, the plan to abolish Sunday bonuses for new employees will be withdrawn again. 100 full-time jobs will be added and new agreements on temporary workers will be made. This is a sufficient basis for the unions to resume talks.
Empty shelves
“We will now work together with all colleagues to restock our shops properly so that all our customers can once again do their shopping with us as they are used to,” Albert Heijn reports. The strikes in five of the six distribution centres have indeed led to empty shelves in supermarkets, especially in the southwest and northeast of the Netherlands.
The impact was also clearly visible in the chain’s Belgian stores, which are supplied from Tilburg, initially mainly in “slow shelf life” categories but on Wednesday also in the fresh departments, RetailDetail could observe in Antwerp.
