Source: CleanTotal
The current collective agreement on cleaning has been extended by six months as negotiations have been moved by corona until after the summer. This implies that no additional collective bargaining agreements will be made until 2022, which could, among other things, affect pricing in 2021. But haven't cleaning companies already factored in a partial percentage in the 2021 price increase they have already announced? This based on historical data? In other words, might the previously announced price increase be reduced?
By Henk Cornelisse, Clean Totaal editorial board member
Enquiries with various cleaning companies reveal that this is certainly not the case in all cases. However, cleaning companies do take the opportunity to make other suggestions known.
Short and to the point
Some entrepreneurs are very adamant and concise in their response . For example, we note: “We only took into account the already known indexation, i.e. the hard agreements. That includes 1 July (after all, that agreement was already there) but without estimates of a new collective agreement.”
Golden mean
Other entrepreneurs are taking a golden mean, among others we saw the following response: “We index many of our contracts based on the CBS 812 index collective agreement wages, thus avoiding assumptions in indexation. So we look back instead of forward. This year based on Q3 2019-Q3 2020. Some agreements do get indexed ahead, these are indexed on a fact-only basis. Any changes then take place when they actually occur.”
CBA not intended as a repair
One of the participating companies in our roundtable calls for not using the end-of-year bonus as a recovery tool: “As long as I have been doing this, the collective agreement has never been concluded before the old one ends. I have suggested before that surely it would be nice if we did not have to use an end-of-year bonus each time to restore the collective agreement because it had to bridge a gap since there was no collective agreement.”
On the price increase, this company says: “The collective agreement is a big part of a price increase, but also other things, like last year's WAB Act. Even in all the years I have been doing this, and whoever makes the arrangements, the cost increase will be between 2.5% and 4%. This is a kind of progressive truth that you can certainly inform your clients of as well. This is also the case this year. For us, this will not change anything.”
Reduction in social charges
Another cleaning contractor is calling for a reduction in social charges for the cleaning industry. This entrepreneur claims not to expect additional agreements for 2021 as the wage increase included in the price increase will continue and the end-of-year bonus will go up. However, this entrepreneur does appeal to send a signal to politicians: “It would be nice for us, cleaning companies and employees, if something finally happens on the gross/net side. Especially for the cleaning sector and actually for all low-paid professions. It cannot be that wages go up every time and the employee doesn't notice much of it. Most of the wage increase disappears in premiums and taxes towards the government.”
Other priorities
Yet another cleaning contractor argues that there is no need to actively push this issue with clients: “Attention is now on other issues, with both clients and cleaning companies, and financial retention is now a priority for many cleaning companies.”
Moreover, this entrepreneur warns that the unions will not leave it at that: “Everyone expects that there will be major adjustments after the summer. Knowing the unions, of course they want to score so that will have to be done in 2021 and no one has figured that out yet so it is definitely for the cleaning company's own account.” Moreover, according to this entrepreneur, another factor that counts is that the necessary price increase cannot be passed on to all customers on the basis of the known data: “I am sure that last December was a low point, because many customers were also worse off financially and then the price increase is immediately pinched or just said ‘no’.”
Price increase adjustment
However, we also received responses that based on experience figures, with the prospect of the new collective bargaining agreements, a partial percentage was indeed factored in. One of the entrepreneurs informed us, “Meanwhile, we have sent a notice to our clients that we are reducing our price increase by 0.90%. After all, we don't need to get extra from it.”
Another entrepreneur expressed a slightly more cryptic view: “There is diversity in how price increases are set due to varying agreements. So whether previously prorated new collective bargaining agreements are relevant is tailor-made. If so, this will of course be coordinated directly with customers.”
There were also, of course, companies that apparently preferred not to respond in substance.
Do not squeeze
It is becoming clear that it may be worthwhile for the parties together to take a close look at how the price increase is calculated. Squeezing out, the cleaning sector so affected by corona is out of the question, so is earning extra by delaying the new collective agreement. The editors appreciate the candid responses from most cleaning contractors. Chapeau.
English (UK)