Dendermonde (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Dendermonde council voted 19–16 to privatise services, affecting 166 workers (14%). ACV union, led by Diane Van Cauter, opposes the plan, fearing job and condition losses.
As VRT News reported, the Dendermonde council has decided to privatise multiple city services. This decision affects 166 employees, representing about 14% of the city’s workers. The vote was close, with a 19-to-16 split in favour of the plan. Services such as the central kitchen, internal cleaning, home cleaning, and the De Kleine Kroon daycare centre are now set to be sold off.
Although a strike occurred the day before on June 10, 2025, the vote and a request for a secret ballot were made, the majority of the council supported the proposal. They mentioned that the main goal of privatisation is to lower the city’s operational costs.
However, this has led to strong opposition from labour unions, especially the ACV (Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond). Diane Van Cauter, the ACV’s secretary, expressed her disappointment after the council’s decision, stating that the union had hoped the decision would be reversed, but their hopes were not realised.
Will Dendermonde privatisation undermine job security?
The ACV union is now checking if the city council did everything correctly when it decided to privatise city services. There are questions about whether private companies will take over these services and if they’ll keep the current employees. The union is worried about job security, working conditions, and the quality of services if they are run by private companies.
Officials mentioned that the fact that the vote was close, there are still many unanswered questions about how it will work, and the union might take legal action. This all suggests that the issue will continue to cause problems and disagreements soon.
The unions are worried about the jobs and pay of workers if a public service is taken over by a private company. They want the new company to keep the same pay, job security, benefits, and work hours for as long as possible. The unions say that if these things change, it could affect the workers and the quality of the services.
The city of Dendermonde has only promised to keep these conditions for 1 year, which the unions think is not long enough. The unions believe this short-term promise makes workers nervous about their future, fearing their pay or jobs could be cut after the year is up.
The unions are not planning to strike right away, but they are organising some protests. They want to keep the issue in the public and get support from workers and the community. One plan is for workers to wear black to the staff party to show their sadness about the lack of job security.
They also plan to use Public Sector Day on June 23, 2025, to talk about the importance of public services and the problems that could arise from uncertain changes or privatisation without protecting workers’ rights.
