University medical centres stick to their interpretation of the collective labour agreement

Do university medical centres adhere to the collective labour agreement or not? "I know students are angry", wrote the Minister of Health, Fleur Agema, to the House of Representatives last week, but she is not going to get involved. After all, the collective labour agreement is a matter for employers and unions.

Mind you, we're not talking about residents, who have a collective labour agreement of their own. However, since last year, "regular" interns and trainees working at university hospitals have been compensated with over four hundred euros a month. This agreement is binding for the seven university medical centres in the Netherlands, with one exception: students in "internal" programmes receive nothing.

Not clear
Last month, UMCs claimed that all students from medical faculties in the Netherlands are "internal", so none of them should receive compensation. This means that a Biomedical Sciences student from Utrecht doing an internship at UMC Leiden or Nijmegen is also considered an "internal" student and therefore will not receive any money.

Trade union FNV had not fully considered this, negotiator Elise Martijn admits. A week and a half ago, she spoke with employers about internship allowances, among other topics, but she didn't discuss the hospitals' interpretation.

"Perhaps we were naïve to assume that students from Amsterdam would also do their internships in Amsterdam. They could also go to Utrecht, of course," says Martijn. As far as she is concerned, this interpretation of the collective labour agreement is incorrect. She hopes that student union members who have not received compensation will report to the FNV to make it an issue.

Compensation
According to Martijn, students not studying Medicine have benefited from the union negotiations. "At first, it seemed that almost all university students were excluded. But that has now been clarified." Martijn is referring to students enrolled in programmes such as Economics or Law, who should now receive an internship allowance.

The healthcare union NU'91 also thinks that more students will receive compensation from now on, while fellow union FBZ, when asked, said that this is not yet certain. The latter union has many medically trained physicians among its members.

The Dutch Federation of University Medical Centres, NFU, has not adjusted its interpretation of the collective labour agreement. "There is no reason to say that our interpretation was wrong", a spokesperson said after the meeting. According to him, UMCs have promised to "explain more clearly to students what we mean by internal and external training programmes."