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11 September, 2007
FNV Bondgenoten, the largest trade union in The Netherlands, will resist the coalition Dutch government’s plans to erode employment protections, specifically regarding dismissals. The coalition Balkenende government is proposing to make it easier and less costly for employers to discard workers, and without providing adequate or proper rationale or reasoning.
On 31 August, the union held a public forum in The Hague on this planned erosion of workers’ rights.
“This will affect every ordinary employee,” warned FNV Bondgenoten Chairman Henk van der Kolk, saying the current agenda by the government is unacceptable. Further dialogue must occur on the issue, and the current plan must be laid aside, he added.
That plan would side-step current Centre for Work and Income (CWI) and court processes in assessing redundancies. It would also allow employers to discard workers with modest severance packages, and it would reduce advanced notice from two and three months to four weeks. The Balkenende plan also would allow employers to deduct re-training costs from severance packages, and places the burden of legal fees for workers daring to challenge dismissals on the individual worker.
FNV Bondgenoten adamantly opposes the Dutch government’s plan to make the labour market more flexible through the reduction of statutory employment protections. The union is liaising closely with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to prevent erosion of such social protections enshrined in law.