Growing fightback by Dutch workers against austerity attacks
AMSTERDAM-Participation in the government is an old story for the Dutch
Social Democracy. For decades,
Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA-Labor Party)
has followed a rightist policy, both in government and out.
the formation of the latest government, half a year ago, the PvdA has not found it so easy as in the past to pull the capitalchestnuts out of the fire for them. This government-which also cludes the Christian Democrats and Democracy 1966 (D66, a liberal "moderformation), has been confronted with a resistance from the workers that is unprecedented in the Netherlands.
November 21, in Amsterdam, there was
the largest demonstration against the installation of new missiles on the continent.
February, the government was confronted with massive strikes and actions against its first big austerity operation, the attack to cut sickness benefits for workers. This opposition to the rightist policy of the PvdA leadership is grow-
At the November 21 demonstration, the PvdA spokesman, Wim Meijer, was hooted down. That was because no one believed that in this government his party was going to make sure that no missiles were based on Dutch soil. More and more workers have just as little faith that in this government, the PdA is going to sure that there are more For a half year, PvdA leader Joop Den Uyl, minister of social affairs in the new government, has been saying that he is going to introduce a program to deal with unemployment. last year, a poll showed that 70% of the party's voters and 77% of the trade-union expected nothing to come of this. (Elsevier, December 31, 1981)
In the past two years, unemployment has doubled, reaching an official total of a half million (out of a total population under 14 million!), and no end is in
PvdA minister, Den Uyl, is doing nothing about unemployment. the workweek would mean a row with the bosses, and he doesn't want that. What he does want is to take millions of gilders from the workers and hand them over to the bosses. That is what the proposal for changing the sickness insurance law amounted to. Sick workers would million gilders, and this money would go to the bosses.
When Den Uyl unveiled this plan in
January, the fat was in the fire.
Netherlands, almost all contracts include a provision giving workers sick pay equal to full wages. This was won by long
Den Uyl's proposal to reduce this to 80% of gross wages would victimize mainly workers working in unhealthy those on rotating shifts, and For sick workers, it would mean a loss of hundreds of guilders a month.
The Industrial Workers Union of the country's biggest labor confederation, the FNV (Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging-the Dutch Federation of Unions)
reacted immediately by distributing leaflets against the plan in the plants. They were entitled: "Hands Off Our Sick Pay
Before We Talk About Anything."
On January 25, the first strikes and actions began on the docks, in the printing business, and in about twenty industrial plants. In innumerable packed union meetings, demands rose for the leadership to produce a plan for quick action, before this bill would come before parliament in mid-March.
The IKB (Internationale Kommunistenbond-International
League, Dutch section of the Fourth International) proposed working toward a 24-hour general strike in order to build front as broad as possible against this plan. In order to defeat the government, two problems had to be
1) In the last big trade-union action, in March 1980, a series of mass rallies were abruptly called off. A lot of union members were not prepared to come out onto the streets again for actions without a clear purpose. would only go out if the actions were carried through until the plans were completely thrown out.
2) In recent years, wage increases have been set from above by the govern-
This has meant not only a sharp decline in real wages (last year it was 3% and this year more than 6% ). This straint" by the union movement has also meant that the working class as a whole has had relatively little experience in ac-
A clear and decisive perspective for action to force the total scrapping of the plan was therefore crucial. Preparing for a 24-hour general strike would provide an opportunity to build up unity through the distribution of informational leaflets, petitions, and the organizing of rallies.
Very quickly, it became clear that the union leadership did not have the leeway now to call off the actions as cold as it did in 1980. In February, strikes and actions spread throughout the
The idea of a 24-hour general strike called by the FNV, it came to the fore.
In fact, the national assembly of the government, in opposition to the proposals of the union leadership, decided to push for such a 24-hour strike.
Furthermore, from the beginning, the political nature of such an action was
The public service unions called on their members to demand that their poliparties call special meetings.
most of them belonged to the PvdA. In the PvdA, a discussion took place, and for example, sixty stewards put PvdA members of parliament on the spot. "What do we care about the deals the
PvdA has made with the parties of the right. The PdA should get out of this
We have had enough." The fact that in this capitalist government, the PvdA was the advocate of austerity measures quite clearly undermined the possibilities for a united fight back. In particular, white-collar workers and members of the Catholic labor confederation took a hesitating attitude at first to the beginning of actions and
"Shouldn't we give Joop Den Uyl another chance?"
The IKB was the only one of the workers parties that consistently argued that the PvdA must break with this government in order to help form the broad. est possible workers united front to fight back against the austerity policy of the bosses and the government, to build the in struggle. However, from the outset, union leadership came up with maneuvers designed to break up unity in action:
-On February 13, suddenly a new line was presented. could be retained by the bosses would not be taken away by the government plan. Since the situation with contract negotiations differed from sector to sector, that meant that every industry in various conditions had to face this issue on their own.
The bosses played on this. For example, when the workers in the printing industry decided on a strike, they stalled the negotiations in the steel and engineer-
Trade union activists released
A number of trade union activists were jailed in connection with clashes between steelworker demonstrators and police on March 16. Some of them have just been