Five unions are calling on Dutch telecom company KPN CEO Eelco Blok to hand back the bonus he received in 2014, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

Blok was paid an extra bonus of €425,000 last year because KPN sold its German arm E-Plus to Spanish peer Telefónica. This brought his total salary to €2.1m compared with €1.4m in 2013. The bonus came to light last month when the annual report was published, the paper says.

Unfair

The five unions – FNV, CNV, De Unie, Qlix and VHP-2 – say it is unfair that only the CEO benefits from the sale. ‘Either the €425,000 goes back into KPN or all the personnel get some sort of bonus,’ the FD quotes the unions as saying. ‘We want more appreciation and certainty for everyone.’

The unions have discussed the matter with the board of supervisors but KPN continues to defend the payment, the FD says. The annual report says Blok was given the bonus for ‘an extraordinary management performance in a very complex and time-consuming process’.

The criticism about the bonus is part of the negotiations on a new pay and conditions agreement which begin shortly. The unions hope KPN will follow the example of ABN Amro where six members of the executive board decided not to accept their controversial €100,000 pay rise last weekend following a storm of criticism.