Dutch unions take a dive for the benefit of the Social-Democrats
In April, confrontations seemed to be shaping up over "At a rapid pace in the past weeks, contract contracts in key sectors of Dutch industry. agreements have been reached,
These battles appeared likely to become the sharpest With some important exceptions (the printing industr struggle in northern Europe after the Danish and various medium-sized plants), there was no rea protest strikes at the beginning of the month. However, breakthrough toward the 36-hour workweek. Not only bosses got off this time with giving
NETHERLANDS.
the new one after the other.
labor the rug has been suddenly the workers by the union leaderships. minimal wage increases.
The employers and the union bureaucrats put off
Under tige e aline Visse Vne neade y i ue ony contad ot one s ongenes one reasn any confrontation by signing contracts for one year Want to Fight," Rene of Klassenstrijd, the paper of the Dutch section of the that the eyes of the Social Democrats are on next Fourth International: Aage SKOVRIND The new contracts just signed in the biggest industries in the Netherlands will doubless determine the trend for the rest of the labor market in the country. They provide full wage increases of 1% to 1.5% for the year (in some cases supplemented by cash boneses), full coverage for illness (in compensation for the cutbacks in publie insurance that the bourgeois government has undertaken this year). They bid a farewell to automatic cost-of-living increases. And the whole thing is sweetened by unbinding promises that a study will be made about the possibilities for reducing the workweek below the present 38 hours.
The workers' main demand for cutting the workweek to 36 hours, in other words, will be put on ice.
More weck rote ro hoa ael overtime, more temporary workers - these have been the results of the two-hour cut in the workweek introduced two years ago. Moreover, the Dutch workers had to pay for this cut in working time themselves by giving up automatic cost-of-living increases. This has meant that in the last two years real wages have fallen by 5% to 7%. The objective of all this was to increase the number of jobs. But very little has been achieved in this respect.
The official statistics indicate that this measure has created new jobs to take up only 20% of the slack created by the workweek reduction. This could happen first and formost because it was not really a reduction of the working week. The two-hours were given in the form of 13 more holidays a year. This gave the bosses the opportunity to make their production schedules more flexible without hiring significantly more workers.
The disillusionment at the small gains from the reduction of working time in 1982 has meant that the Dutch unions International Viewpoint 20 May 1985 out from under that, but the years elections. are continuing to lose members at an undiminished rate. For example, over the last five or six years, the Industriebond, the big industrial workers union, has lost nearly a third of its membership (which has fallen from 300,000 to 220,000). But the rank-and-file discontent also led union leaders to stiffen their demands in negotiations this year. This time they demanded a reduction of the workweek to 36 hours and in a very different form.
"The first time, we were the ones who paid for it, now it's your turn," the union leaders said in effect. Among other things, they could point to record profits by Dutch businesses. the lack created by the reduction in hours should be taken up 100% by new hiring, the union leaders argued, without indicating in practice how this could be controlled.
On the other hand, the Industriebond failed to raise the demand for restoration of cost-of-living increases. The leadership figured that automatic increases would not make the need for the union as clear to the members as regular wage negotia-
The bosses had already rejected the demand for the 36-hour week in the fall. And in the beginning of March the negotiations were temporarily broken off.
a lot of workplacés, there was a readiness for action. Action plans were worked out and warning strikes took place, rallies were held. In the meantime, it became clear quickly enough that the union leadership did not want to fight for the union demands but only to put pressure on the employers.
The leadership in the largest labor confederation Vakvereningen
Netherlands Federation of supports the Social Democratic PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid - Labor Party). And the PvdA is hoping to be able to participate in a coalition government with one or a number of bourgeois parties after the parliamentary elections in 1986. The opinion polls show a clear advance for the PvdA, indicating that as of now over 40% of the voters would support it [this is a large percentage in view of the many parties represented in the Dutch parliament].
The experience with the 13 extra days off a year has been, as I noted, that the bosses have carried out a speedup, hours the plants operate, and increased the number of temporary Their response to a concerted demand from the unions for a shorter workweek with no cut in and all the slack taken up by new hiring was flat refusal.
But that has not been an obstacle signing local contracts where the conditions are favorable them. The most striking example is the Nijmegen, where the management itself proposed reducing the workweek to 36 hours. In return for that, they wanted to introduce two six-hour shifts a day and Sunday work! The unions in the plant expressed a positive interest in the
A similar development has taken place in Belgium, where Saturday and Sunday have already come to be considered normal working days. Two years ago, the contracts opened the way for weekend work, if the "social partners" in given factories agreed on this. A few ago, the bourgeois government considered a law that would eliminate the need for the workers' consent. The government could point to the fact that this system has already been introduced on a volun.tary basis in a series of plants.
The eight-hour workday, with Saturday and Sunday off, safety improvements, and other gains the workers movement has won through long years of struggle can quickly become things of the past if the unions do not put up a fight soon enough against the bosses' plans for flexible working time.
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