Dutch unions take a dive for the benefit of the Social-Democrats
In April, confrontations seemed to be shaping up over the new contracts in key sectors of Dutch industry. These battles appeared likely to become the sharpest labor struggle in northern Europe after the Danish protest strikes at the beginning of the month. However, the rug has been suddenly pulled out from under the workers by the union leaderships.
Under the headline, "The Union Leaders Did Not Want to Fight," Rene Visser wrote in the May 1 issue
"At a rapid pace in the past weeks, contract agreements have been reached, one after the other. With some important exceptions (the printing industry and various medium-sized plants), there was no real breakthrough toward the 36-hour workweek. Not only that, but the bosses got off this time with giving minimal wage increases."
The employers and the union bureaucrats put off any confrontation by signing contracts for one year onlv instead of the usual longer terms. One reason i want to rignt, kene visser wrote in the way tissue of Klassenstrijd, the paper of the Dutch section of the
Fourth International:
only instead of t that the eyes of years elections.
ne usual longer terms. One reason is the Social Democrats are on next 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, increased the number of hours the plants operate, and increased the number of temporary workers. Their response to a concerted demand from the unions for a shorter workweek with no cut in pay and all the slack taken up by new hiring was flat refusal.
But that has not been an obstacle to the bosses signing local contracts where the conditions are favorable to them. The most striking example is the big metallurgical plant HOLEC in 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 proposal.
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 weeks 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.
5
Aage SKOVRIND The new contracts just signed in the biggest industries in the Netherlands will doubtless 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 bonuses), full coverage for illness (in compensation for the cutbacks in public 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 overtime, speedup, 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 respeet.
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 foremost 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 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. This time, the lack created by the reduction in hours should be taken up 100% by new hiring, the union leaders argued, but 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 negotiations.
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. In a lot of workplaces, 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, the Federatie van Nederlandse Vakvereningen (FNV -Netherlands Federation of Unions) 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
PERU
• majority of the population (including