Netherlands: the fate of precarious workers at the center of ongoing negotiations for collective agreements

“Permanent contracts have to remain the rule.”  This is a priority for the FNV, the country’s key union Confederation, and its member federations stick to it: in all the collective agreements negotiated this year, specific claims concern the fate of precarious workers (fixed-term contracts, temporary and self-employed workers), not to mention young people (15-23), whose minimum wage is subject to a special system in the Netherlands, exposing them to abusive practices (see our dispatch No.  110062).  For their part, temporary workers earn minimum wage but are often inactive, “hence their greater exposure to the poverty risk” explained Mariette Parijn from the FNV and Allies (FNV Bondengoten).  A go-slow strike organized by that union in February in the Albert Heijn supermarkets was successful: 200 people’s contracts became permanent and the part of “flexwerkers” must go from over 50% down to 23%, following a schedule which is still under discussion.  The fate of “flexwerkers” (flexible workers) is also a priority for the tricky negotiation that opened on February 17th for the new agreement in the basic metal industry (see our dispatch No.  110115).  It is no less central in the three-year old arm wrestling game between unions, government and the private postal companies, Sandd and Selekt Mail, which appeal to day laborers paid by the number of letters delivered or sorted.  These companies should hire 80% of their workforce by January 2015 with a labor contract, the FNV points out (see our dispatch No.  091154).  In the poultry industry (pluimvee industrie), 30% of a total workforce of 7,500 are precarious workers, mostly Polish.  The FNV wants them to be permanently integrated in the companies, still within the framework of the negotiations starting in February for the next collective agreements.