The better contract for around 135.000 cleaners -mainly migrants from Morocco, Turkey, Suriname, Ghana, Capo Verde, and Latin America- working in the Netherlands is a fact! That’s what it looks like, after the negotiators of the employers gave in on 24th and 25th of january to their most important demands: an hourly wage of 10 euros, a better arrangement for travel expenses and language courses and on-the-job training for all those that need it.

The cleaners (those that are members of a union) will be informed this week about the details, and can cast their vote on the result. If a majority of them approves the result, the union negotiator will sign the actual agreement.

Despite the fact that a lot of people are working as cleaners, the hard core of this recent struggle were just 150-200 of them, who have been involved from the beginning to the end in the escalation of actions. This indicates that more real, meaningful improvements can be won if more people get involved and fight for them. However, this experience has shown that the question is not just whether you fight or not, but how you fight.

The campaign website (in Dutch)