Dutch Unions Merge. One Big Union by Year 2006?

Will the Netherlands have just one big trade union by the year 2006?

Dutch labour's old ideal of full unity is now within grasp, following a historic union congress in Amsterdam last Thursday (29 January).

THE BONDGENOTEN MACHINE
Four big Dutch unions merged to set it in motion.
More mergers on the way?

FNV Bondgenoten (FNV Allies) is the name of the new Dutch super-union founded last week by the merger of four unions organising across a wide range of sectors. These include chemicals, energy and other process industries, transport, metalworking, food, agriculture and services.

With around half a million members, the Bondgenoten is by far the biggest union in the Netherlands. Among its global affiliations is the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

FNV Bondgenoten got straight down to global union business. Its first act was to hand a cheque for two million guilders (almost a million US dollars) to Dutch trade union confederation FNV for international solidarity work. In future, half a percent of all members' dues will go into FNV Bondgenoten's own global solidarity fund.

And in cooperation with the FNV confederation, the Bondgenoten will be putting a lot of effort into raising Dutch workers' awareness - already high - about the global context of trade unionism.

In fact, Bondgenoten President Henk Krul did plenty of consciousness-raising himself in his policy speech to the founding congress. Contributions to global trade unionism are "money well spent," he said. "If we look a little beyond our own part of the world, we can see the power of big money and the multinationals growing at a frightening pace. Ten or twenty years ago, a financial crisis in Asia wouldn't have been our problem. Today it is. The freedom and the speed with which capital, including our pension and insurance premiums, races around the world is increasing all the time. Correspondingly, the opportunities to exert political influence are shrinking. In fact, national governments are vying more and more for the investors' favour."

MAKING GLOBAL TRADE UNIONISM A PRIORITY
Bondgenoten President Henk Krul
(photos: FNV Bondgenoten)

Krul also announced a special Bondgenoten project to monitor developments in Dutch-based multinationals and to help stimulate trade union networking within them.

Bondgenoten is perhaps the only trade union in history to call for its own disappearance at its founding congress. The new union is just an "intermediate step", Krul told delegates. "I want to state plainly here that we will do our utmost to ensure that by the year 2006, the centenary of the modern Dutch trade union movement, we all merge into one, undivided FNV."

Meanwhile, the big new Bondgenoten will in fact be getting closer to its grassroots, Krul emphasised. Fifteen sections will deal with special membership interests. Workplace-level reps will be placed at the centre of the union's action as Dutch collective bargaining continues to decentralise. Geographically, too, the union will be near the rank-and-file. To applause, Krul announced plans to have a union service point within 25 kilometres of every member's home. The union would be open to workers in the broadest sense of the term, including the self-employed and benefits claimants such as the unemployed and retirees. In fact, there would be room for everyone except "sexists, racists or homo-haters."

Krul had a clear message, too, for the Dutch employers and government: the workers must get their full share of the much-vaunted Dutch economic miracle, and they must get it fast. Dutch growth and employment had certainly increased, he said, but neither the new wealth nor the new jobs had been fairly distributed.

"Yes, yes," Krul told visiting Prime Minister Wim Kok, "I know we mustn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But we can help ourselves to the eggs from time to time. In fact, that's what geese are for."