Right around the same time, I received a call from the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) to participate in strikes against the cutbacks in higher education. I’ve never participated in strikes. Strikes don’t achieve anything in higher education. If all hospital staff went on strike tomorrow, politicians would notice immediately. Their eyelid corrections, for example, would have to be postponed. If all the garbage collectors went on strike tomorrow, everyone would notice immediately. (I’ve been to Rome three times during such a strike; I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone). If we go on strike tomorrow, no one will notice.

Strike

The few students who bother to come to class during a strike will shrug their shoulders and think: “Oh, apparently there’s no class today”. Some institutions in Eindhoven already got rid of classes completely, so a strike wouldn’t be noticed there at all. Research at TU/e won’t be affected either, because any curious researcher will conduct that research anyway. The work will simply be done at a later time or continued at the kitchen table. In fact, many colleagues will see strikes in education as extra research time.

Persuasion

In addition, the cutbacks I’d have to strike against aren’t affecting TU/e too badly for the time being, because I read that Robert-Jan Smits has persuaded ASML to invest ‘a whopping’ 8 million euros a year in TU/e over the next ten years. (Just for context: ASML sponsors all kinds of local events for over 8 million euros a month, and its net profit in 2024 was 7.6 billion euros).

So why did I smile? Because Robert-Jan Smits didn’t succeed in persuading the minister to reverse the cuts. Now that would have been a legacy. Will the unions succeed where he failed? I really hope so.

Boudewijn van Dongen is a professor of Process Analytics at TU/e. The views expressed in this column are his own.