Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond

CNV

Full name	National Federation of Christian Trade Unions in the Netherlands
Native name	Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond
Founded	May 13, 1909
Members	350,000
Affiliation	ITUC, ETUC
Office location	Utrecht, The Netherlands
Country	Netherlands
Website	www.cnv.nl

The Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond (English: National Federation of Christian Trade Unions in the Netherlands; CNV) is a federation of trade unions of the Netherlands.

The CNV was founded on May 13, 1909, in Arnhem as a federation of several Christian unions. It was founded in reaction to the socialist NVV, which was founded in 1906. The CNV was more moderate than the NVV. It opposed the idea of class struggle and instead oriented itself towards a corporatist model of the economy. It was an interconfessional union, intended to represent both Protestant and Roman Catholic workers.

In 1912, however, the Roman Catholic bishops spoke out against interconfessional unions. All Roman Catholics left CNV and founded a separate Roman Catholic union, the RKWV "Rooms-Katholieke Werklieden Verbond" (Roman Catholic Workers' Union). The CNV orientated itself towards the Protestant Anti Revolutionary Party, with which it formed the Protestant pillar.

After the Second World War, the corporatist model, which the CNV advocated was introduced in the Netherlands, this was combined with a strong welfare state. Unions received more influence in Dutch politics: the CNV became part of the Social-Economic Council an advisory board of government composed of representatives from unions, employers' organizations and independent scientists.

Because of the depillarization of Dutch society and the rising political polarization between left and right, the three major unions, the socialist NVV, the Protestant CNV and the Catholic NKV began to open talks in order to found one single federation of Dutch unions. In 1974 the CNV left those talks. In 1976 the NVV and NKV merged to form the FNV, which was led by Wim Kok.

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