Social partner involvement in the 2002 NAP

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This feature examines social partner involvement in the Netherlands' 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) for employment. It is one of a set of similar features for all the EU Member States, written in response to a questionnaire

This feature outlines how Dutch social partner organisations have been involved in the Netherlands' 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) on employment. Under the European employment strategy, each year the EU Member States draw up NAPs in response to the annual Employment Guidelines.

Similar features on social partner involvement in the 2002 NAPs have been drawn up by the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) national centres in all the EU Member States, in response to a questionnaire. Details on the background to this exercise, and the questionnaire used, can be found at TN0206102F. Readers are advised to refer to the questionnaire in conjunction with this feature.

Procedural aspects

The social partners at the central level were consulted on the draft text of the 2002 NAP. They were given a week (or less) to respond via a subcommittee of the bipartite Labour Foundation (Stichting van de Arbeid, STAR).

The VNO-NCW central employers' organisation accepted this tight deadline because it recognised that the Dutch government faces EU information supply constraints. The Dutch Trade Union Federation (Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, FNV) was less satisfied with the timing. If the NAP is regarded only as a report on past activities, then FNV has no complaints on the timing. However, if the NAP also assumes a policy-making role, then FNV wants more time to indicate policy priorities and to integrate the EU Employment Guidelines, which extend beyond Dutch policy on a number of points. FNV believes that a two-year cycle for NAPs - as proposed in some circles - would be an improvement on the current one-year cycle.

With regard to the extent to which the social partners' views are represented in the NAP, the partners currently do not believe that their vision is represented in the NAP, which falls under the government's responsibility. However, the government did consult the social partners on a number of components of the NAP, cooperative efforts were made and responsibilities were demarcated.

The NAP does not contain a section written by the social partners. It is not viewed as a joint government/social partner text and the social partners did not sign it. The social partners were not invited to agree or disagree with the NAP and the degree of consultation on the NAP itself was low. However, the degree of consultation at other points of the policy cycle which serves as the foundation for the NAP – such as the regular spring and autumn meetings between the government and the social partners – is high. The policy cycle involves discussions in the framework of the current socioeconomic situation on topics such as unemployment and training.

Matters of policy content

Objective D of the 2002 Employment Guidelines calls for a 'comprehensive partnership with the social partners for the implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the employment strategy'. As seen above, the specific consultation over the text of the 2002 NAP was limited. However, this should be seen within a high level of overall partnership between the government and social partners in areas including employment policy (forming the basis for NAPs), based on the Dutch 'polder model' of consultation and social partner involvement in decision-making (NL0201113F). In terms of implementation of the employment strategy, the social partners demand and take on responsibility and 'fine-tune' this with the government. Specifically, the social partners implement many issues of relevance through the setting of terms and conditions of employment by collective bargaining, which they regard as their territory, with the government playing a facilitating role.

With regard to the social partners' assessment of the policy content of the NAP and the government's employment policy, there is some degree of dissatisfaction. FNV's criticism is mainly focused on the NAP procedure and the method of consultation (see above). For its part, VNO-NCW has more wide-ranging concerns. Its chief complaint is that the government wishes to regulate too much. Government measures increase labour costs and leave employers with no room to negotiate in collective bargaining, according to VNO-NCW, and the government should instead monitor negotiations and create legislation that serves to support them.

On the question of whether the social partners perceive any gaps or insufficiencies in the NAP, VNO-NCW believes that it should do more to address two key problems: the large number of employees who are on WAO disability insurance benefit (NL0201113F); and the 'poverty trap', whereby people receiving welfare benefits who return to work lose their right to various payments and receive an income hardly exceeding the poverty level, giving them little incentive to work. VNO-NCW also believes the NAP should include a section on migration policy, which is necessary especially in the light of labour shortages in the 'knowledge economy'. FNV believes that the NAP's measures on reintegrating long-term unemployed people lack quality, and criticises the government for implementing its lifelong learning policy insufficiently, for example not providing a training budget linked to the individual worker.

Bargaining

The 2002 Employment Guidelines promote collective bargaining in the areas of:

• improving the quality of work and employment (in general);

• modernising work organisation (guideline 13);

• lifelong learning in the context of competence and skill development in enterprises (guideline 15);

• 'active ageing' (guideline 3);

• strengthening equal opportunities for men and women (tackling the gender pay gap, desegregating the labour market, reconciling work and family/private life etc) (guidelines 16,17 and 18); and

• social integration by way of better access to the labour market for groups and individuals at risk or at a disadvantage, such as people from ethnic minorities, migrant workers, long-term unemployed people and people with disabilities (guideline 7).

No specific data are available on bargaining in the Netherlands on these issues since November 2001 (when the 2002 Employment Guidelines were sent to the Member States). However, all the issues listed are dealt with in collective agreements at sector or company level, although this has developed for national reasons more than European ones, as follows:

• quality of work and employment, and modernising work organisation, have featured regularly on the bargaining agenda since the 1982 tripartite 'Wassenaar agreement', which traded wage moderation for working time reductions and job creation;

• on lifelong learning, the tripartite Social and Economic Council (Sociaal Economische Raad, SER), issued a draft recommendation on the subject in 2002, while in 2001 virtually all collective agreements (according to the Labour Inspectorate's 2001 end-of-year report on collective agreements) included provisions on the issue of 'employability'- ie training and education;

• . 'active ageing' is increasingly a matter for both collective bargaining and government action (the government, for example, wants to reinstate mandatory job-seeking for unemployed people aged 57 and above);

• gender policy has been given an increasingly prominent role by both bargaining and the government since the end of the 1990s. Notably in 2001, the government passed the General Work and Care Act (Algemene Wet Arbeid en Zorg, AWAZ), which seeks to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family responsibilities (NL0002182F). Some two-thirds of collective agreements now contain provisions on childcare and abbreviated work schedules, while around a quarter include provisions on emergency or care leave (see Mannen zorgen. Verandering en continuïteit in zorgpatronen[Men care. Changes and continuity in care patterns], M Grünell, Amsterdam, Aksant 2002); and

• social integration has received considerable attention from both government and social partners in recent years. The government has introduced subsidised employment for groups and individuals with labour market difficulties and the social partners, with government support, have concluded agreements on education and training for such people. Even so, the social partners are critical on this very subject. For example, FNV is calling for education and lifelong learning to be included in the government's proposed mandatory job-seeking provisions for older unemployed people (see above), while VNO-NCW (as mentioned above) sees the rising tide of disability benefit recipients and the 'poverty trap' as weak points in Dutch labour market policy.

(Marianne Grünell, HSI)