For the occasion, I’m gonna post this one in English.
Past 3 days I was in Brussels. For the FNV spoor union I was asked to speech about my #AgressieSpoortNiet action at the annual meeting of the Woman’s committee of the ETF (European Transportworkers’ Federation)
https://www.fnv.nl/cao-sector/vervoer/spoor
https://www.etf-europe.org/about-us/governance-bodies/womens-committee/
So, for the first time ever I prepared and held a speech in English. Because all the participants were from various European transport related unions.
We had live translation, but Dutch wasn’t one of the translated languages, so English it was.
The meeting was at a department building of the European committee. And on the first day 2 European Parliament members were present and held a speech also.
Although we talked about various subjects, violence was one of the main subjects.
So, at the end of the first day it was my turn. Due to time limits I already shortened my speech. Of course I can talk about it for hours. But we didn’t have that time.
My speech had 2 parts. The first and biggest part was about my march, and the second part about a recent situation that occurred. But you will all read about that below in my speech 👇
Good Morning kind people,
And that’s also how I start off every train ride that I make. And during those rides, it will be the first thing that you’ll hear me say anytime when I’m calling the stations, or any other announcement I make through the speakers on the train.
Thank you for having me, and thank you for listening to my story.
I’m gratefull to be standing here amongst all of these great people that stand up for our rights, and in this case, our safety.
Let me introduce myself. I’m Priscilla, a 40 year old train conductor , a mom of 3 beautiful young women, the middle one of 19 in school to be a train driver, I have a partner that is a train driver (and yes, we met in the train) and since 4 years I’ve been working with NS, the Dutch Railways, and last but not least a very active member of the FNV Spoor union.
Due to my past employments with the Dutch Navy and the Dutch Police and my recent experiences as a railway worker, I took it upon myself to better the one thing in my job I will never like or accept. Aggression & Violence
Last januari, the statistics of our company were published. 1042 registered A incidents like threatening, spitting or fysical violence against one of our staff members in 1 year.
So, at least 3 colleagues of mine get victimised every single day again. And we ? We tell them have a nice day too, turn around, put the smile back on to our face, and continue working. Good morning kind people ! And most passengers won’t even know what happened. Because that’s how we keep ourselves from going insane. Crazy right?
Back to January of this year. On behalf of the union, I got invited to a national talk show. To talk about the violence against public transport workers.
But, an hour before the end of my shift I got the call : the item about violence was replaced by another one. At first I thought maybe something happened in the world that was way more important. But I also asked myself the question that was stuck in my mind : is it really necessary that one of our colleagues gets heavily injured or maybe even get killed before we are important enough? And the only answer was yes.
By the way, the item that replaced us? The evolvement of ice skating. True. Very important to the Dutch.
Watching the show I got angry, frustrated and sad at the same time. (Please keep that in mind) Knowing I had to do something that was or : insane or undoable. I chose both. In the middle of the night I came up with an idea.
#AgressieSpoortNiet (AgressionDerails) was born.
In all secrecy about my plan, i started a public blog about agression in our work. Every day I added stories, or statistics and shared that on my socials. Without ever telling what I was gonna do. I kept it secret until about 2 weeks before i started. Because i wanted it to be my thing, my action in my summer vacation. Except for the union. I asked them to support and facilitate me where necessary.
So, what did I do ? Well. I came up with the idea of walking half a kilometer , through the Netherlands from train station to train station, for every A incident that got reported in 2023. So, 521 kilometers. In 3 weeks. But here’s the catch : untrained. I’m not a walker, I take the car or train for anything I do, and the only walking I do, is during work. So there’s the insane and undoable. But, I decided my stubborn head was enough for me to finish this queste.
And I did.. I ended up with 535 kilometres, took 2 extra resting days because of intense heat in the first week, added the lost kilometres to my remaining routes and finished in the Hague. The city where my workdays starts and ends, and the city of our politics. During those weeks people could follow me live on socials, I slept and eat with friends, colleagues, followers on my socials and even complete strangers thet heard about me. Most days people decided to join me on my routes. And 1 colleague, who was on sick leave due to multiple aggression incidents, even joined me 5 times.
The support was overwhelming. Our CEO and board of directors kept in touch. The union supported me with anything they possibly could. Colleagues followed me and even gave me gifts.
Like this bracelet that a colleague gave to me with the start of my second day. She told me she always wears it to keep her safe, and then took it off and gave it to me. I still wear it 24/7.
Or the time I walked into a car dealership, to ask for some coffee, no coffee no railwayworkers, and we ended up talking about and on the phone with his pensioner father in law who was a train conductor for 42 years with our company, who was the direct colleague of the colleague who got stabbed to death in 1991 during his work. I was 7 at that time. And totally unaware that 30 years later I would do the same work, and fighting for this cause. We ended up crying on both sides of the phone. I felth his pain as a colleague and he felt my will to never let something like that to ever happen again.
The support I’ve gotten from my colleague’s, like one time 13 colleague’s waited for me to walk me to their station, where I was greated by even more colleagues. I think there were at least 30. They’ve arranged soup, bread and gave me the warmest welcome to their station.
The last day, to me the impossible happened. I had the union, the company and a politician walking side by side with me to the finish line. All with the same goal. Imagine that, the company, the union and politics hand in hand. And It really occured to me on that moment that I made that happen. I was so proud.
But, the one thing that I will remember forever, was the person that showed up at that last finish also. Margriet Drijver The first female train conductor of NS after WW2. She gave me her old whistle, some printouts of newspapers from when she started and this pin of the Polish union Solidarnosc , that she traded with a polish railwayworker back in her days.
And since the day she gave it to me, this pin, is stuck on my uniform. And it will stay there forever.
With her showing up and her gifts, she gave me everything my queste stands for. Empowerment, solidarity, hope and most of all the feeling that i can change whatever i set my mind to. Step by step.
With this queste i made loads of national news, newspapers, radio, local news and even a Belgian and French website wrote about it. And no, the violence isn’t gone, and it won’t be gone. But the news is out there, and I know a lot of people are working hard to get this under control. And I will keep fighting for this cause just as long as it’s necessary. For my colleagues in public transport everywhere, for my partner, for my daughter and for myself. Because I love my job, and I won’t let anyone take even a tiny bit of that passion for this work from me.
And that brings me to my latest action. A reaction to a TV statement of a fraction leader of our parliament that could possibly increase agression against us.
A few weeks ago some local VVD politicians wrote a letter to NS. As a follow up after an announcement of pro palastinian demonstrations in our stations. Demonstrations that are protected by law even on exessable private ground like our stations. Full aware of our tough history in WW2, they claimed NS should finally show that we are not antisemetic. And that we facilitate antisemitism by letting those demonstrations occur.
I’m gonna spare you all the details in these letters but they weren’t fair knowing that lawfully we werent the ones who could forbid or end the demonstrations. No matter what it was about.
A few days later, the fraction leader of the VVD got interviewed about it in a talkshow. The host asked her if she agreed that NS is facilititating antisemitism. And visibally uncomfortable by this question and after some thinking, she answered : yeah, it is what is is.
And I couldn’t believe what she just said. Knowing she was our former minister of justice. She knows how the laws work, she knows NS can’t do anything about it. But still, she threw this bombshell.
And again.. I got angry, I got frustrated and I got sad. (See the red line?)
I wrote her an open letter. Online on X. Im gonna read a small part that ended up in the news like this.
How dare you, with your background within the Ministry of Justice, accuse the NS, including indirectly the staff, of anti-Semitism. How dare you insinuate that this has still been present since the Second World War. How dare you damage the good name and honor of my colleagues and me. For me, a proud conductor, your statement feels like a knife in my back. And I am sure that this also applies to many of my colleagues. It feels like a stepping stone to even more aggression than we already have to deal with. So it feels like incitement and slander to the company, and to my colleagues and me. And you know what? Maybe that’s exactly what it is. I hope you realize what you have done, and I sincerely hope that you will swallow your words. Even though the damage has already been done.”
And that letter went pretty viral. It made the news, online I couldn’t keep up with the responses. Good and ugly. But one response stood out. A private message from the fraction leader herself. If i was willing to talk with her privately on the phone the next day. And of course, I said yes. The next day I talked with a lot of people. Directors of various departments of our company to support me and offering me help with the conversation. Witch I declined. I can handle myself. And ofcours the fraction leader herself. We had a good talk, I explained why her appearance could endanger my colleagues and myself and she apologised to me. But, she also took her words, that we were responsible, back in a talkshow on the same channel that morning.
As I concluded in my letter to her, the words have been said, the harm has been done, but I made her realize what she said with those few little words.
And only because I don’t live by the words that the fraction leader said. I will not let things be what they are if it is not right. And no one should. Because it only is what is is if you let it. And we all have the possibility to change. One step at a time.
Thank you.
The end of my speech was followed by a standing ovation. And afterwards I talked one on one about it with a lot of the participants of the meeting. It made me proud, thankful and even more dedicated about continuing my chosen path to try to lower the violence against transport workers by uniting everyone that is involved. Because that’s the only way we can fight against this. Together.
And, like I know by now; every little step counts.
And making people aware, whoever they are, is a bigger step then it sometimes seems like.
#AgressieSpoortNiet but I’m too stubborn to let it be 💪
HC Priscilla 
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