On Saturday 4th July, the National Council — Ledenparlement or ‘members parliament’ — of the biggest Dutch trade union federation FNV voted, with 64 in favour of and 40 against, a deal that will impact the official retirement age. It will go up from 66,8 years now to 68 in 2025.
It will also effect the money workers will be paid from the pension funds. A significant part of Dutch pensions depends on funds active on financial markets. Since 2008 these funds have been in trouble and now the government wants to make workers pay for this. To prepare the ground for this, in June 2019, a preliminary deal was hastily pushed through the union in a referendum.
The pensions paid as the official state pension (AOW) are insufficient. Instead of public investment in a stronger public pension, the Dutch government established the so-called ‘second pillar’ — state regulated private pension funds, which up till now have been owned and controlled by the workers’ and employers’ representatives collectively. By January 2020, their combined reserves exceeded 1500 billion euro, twice the Dutch GDP.
Each year, 32 billion is paid out in pension payments and administrative fees consume 8,2 Billion! Pension contributions to AOW provide an annual income of 30 billion euros, while last year investment income provided a further 100 billion euro. There is enough in the funds to pay pensions for 70 years!
Just one year ago, the Rutte Cabinet, employers and union leaders celebrated a preliminary new pension and retirement age deal. This meant the scrapping of the guarantees in the previous system of an indexed pension based on gross 70% of meridian wage after 42 years. Now, the system will not only be directly dependent on the stock market, but will also freeze employer contributions. Thus, all setbacks would be at the cost of the employees.
The employers’ representatives achieved their main objective, which had already been set in motion in the mid-90’s; the slow but certain transfer to, and expropriation of the pension funds by the private insurance companies and banks.
The deal with its counter-reforms now has been finalised.
Growing resistance in the trade union federation
On June 12th a small majority of the Ledenparlement blocked the finalisation of the pension deal to the demise of corporate Holland. Backdoor negotiations over the past year failed to satisfy the trade union demands. To prevent further movement, trade union delegates did not log in to the meeting so that the needed quorum was not reached.
As no real opposition to the deal was expected a press conference was planned for 15:00. This was to follow a meeting of the National Council of the FNV, which was due to rubber-stamp the proposal at 12:00, after a short, formal discussion. Minister Koolmees would then inform the Parliament in a meeting at 13:00. This would include an explanation to the Chamber of his ‘letter of intent’, although this was not given to the Union representatives. As the sitting coalition has a majority in the Lower Chamber, it would have approved the agreement at 14:00. Labour and the Greens who had already come ‘on board’, would ensure the vote was passed in the Senate. After 18 long years of struggle and negotiations under the directives of the Lisbon-treaty, albeit at the expense of the workers, ‘well-deserved’ celebrations were planned.
Spoiled salmon and warm champagne
Panic struck the TUC-HQ when the quorum wasn’t met. But all bureaucratic machinations to overcome this failed. Meanwhile, those who had by then been branded “dissidents” stuck to their plan of not logging in and, at 14:00, distributed their Declaration. This action effectively derailed the Parliamentary agenda. The shocked responses of the parliamentary and corporate speakers on National Television and in other state media were clear for all to see as the official government press conference was cancelled and their salmon and champagne turned warm.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers regained a feeling of hope and combativeness. This was evident from the explosion of support from the rank and file. Rushing to try and overcome the opposition, the TUC-leadership set a new date, July 4th for a meeting to approve the change. By law, a decisive majority does not depend on the official quorum of delegates (105), but just on the people actually attending. They hoped they would be able to push through the ‘Yes’ vote, to which the union committed itself in negotiations behind closed doors in 2006 and 2013.
The Lisbon Treaty
The Dutch bourgeoisie has a long tradition, and after its demise as a world imperialist power in the 16th and 17th century, has played a significant role in international finance. It practically invented protestant mercantilism as a complement to the stock market, but lost its position after several wars with England. Ever since, the Dutch elite made its money in trade and foreign markets, being less interested in the tiny internal market and its working class.
After 1948, the so-called Rhineland-model of capitalism was institutionalised in the Netherlands. This was based on a conscious approach of class collaboration by the employers by integrating the union and labour leadership into the state’s governing structures.
Beginning in the 1980’s, Wim Kok, leader of the Labour Party (PvdA), joined Tony Blair to play a major role in shaping neo-liberal politics in the European Social democracy. This required the dismantling of the social welfare state.
In 1983, Wim Kok gained notoriety for the Wassenaar agreement. This was a social contract to scrap the automatic price index, a sliding scale of wages, with workers accepting lower wages and benefit cuts in exchange for the reduction of the working week from 40 hours in 1983 to 35 hours by 1989 supposedly to save and create jobs. In 2020 the average railway worker still works 36 hours a week, mainly due to their union being one of the strongest. Most work longer hours.
As Prime Minister, in coalition with the Conservatives, between 1994–98 Wim Kok pushed through public sector privatisation, starting with Healthcare, Public Transport and Housing. In 1998, all socialist aspirations were removed from the PdvA party program. Under his chairpersonship, Wim Kok signed the Treaty of Lisbon, making the Netherlands a part of the Bosses’ Europe.
This treaty, with its associated directives, is aimed at making Europe into an economic stronghold able to compete with Asian markets. This meant that labour costs needed to be reduced by 50% by 2020 and the welfare state dismantled. In the 2003 elections the PvdA paid for its collaborationist polices, but the working class fought back. In 2004, over 350.000 people protested against the threat to raise the state pension age, and against government attempts to intervene in the social contracts between employers and employees.
Decades of neo-liberal policies
In 2006 a new social contract was proposed, promoted by Agnes Jongerius, the then leader of the FNV, who now occupies a comfortable seat in the European parliament. This envisaged the state retirement age rising from 65 to 68 by 2025 and the abolition of early retirement.
Some of the more obscure arguments for raising the retirement age included the threat of labour shortages in 2040 and the ‘unaffordability’ of the welfare state which, they argued, needed reforms to be robust for future generations. As a minor concession to the least well-off, a study was promised to secure early retirement for those whose work involved heavy or dangerous work resulting in an average reduced life expectancy of six years or more. To date this promise has been repeated several times, but not implemented.
Following strikes and protests in 2010 and 2011, a conflict within the trade union federation broke out. The more combative and better organised layers in the public sector union ABVA KABO as well as the biggest general industrial union, FNV Bondgenoten, supported initially by the Builders Union, opposed these new setbacks.
The Christian democrat led Balkenende government collapsed in 2010 after seven years of coalitions-in-crisis. While in power, they did manage to steal 30 billion Euros from the civil servant’s pension fund, as well as increasing the retirement age by introducing a new pension law and regulations with the help of its coalition partner, the Labour Party under Wouter Bos. The new laws included a freeze on the indexation of pensions by introducing a new mathematical component—the “rekenrente” (actuarial interest) —based on the Dutch State lending rate to force the funds to build up higher reserves. In addition, the beneficiaries were rate-capped, while employer contributions were reduced. This situation has continued for 12 years now, leaving pensioners with an income drop of 20% according to the government’s Bureau of Statistics.
In the Letter of Intent of Minister Koolmees presented to Parliament on June 12th 2020 it was revealed that there is also an expected drop of 20% for those still working and paying under the ‘old regulations’. This information was hidden in the section of the letter entitled ‘’less relevant forecasts and additions”.
The Offensive: A fundamental change against the race to the bottom!
Class collaborationism has been part and parcel of social democracy since World War 2, but now it has led to their demise, with the PvdA having its worst ever election results in 2017. It won only 9 seats and was overtaken by the Liberal-Democrats, the Greens and the Socialist Party (SP). The SP, once a promising new left formation which gained 24 representatives in 2011, has followed the same curve and been reduced to 14 seats, due to their strategic and tactical mistakes based on ‘lesser-evilism’, by entering coalitions with anybody, including the conservatives at local and regional level.
Understandably, this has allowed populist reactionary parties like the Party for freedom (PvV) of Geert Wilders and even a proto-fascist party, Forum voor Democratie (FvD) to develop and win a percentage of the electorate from diverse layers, including the working class.
For some years now the state of organised labour has been dramatically worsening. Membership has fallen from 21% of the workforce in 2001, to 19% in 2011 and now a mere 14%. 40% of the Dutch workforce of just over 8 million people now work on flexible contracts, in part because such contracts up to a maximum of 12 hours are subsidised by the Dutch government, if workers are recruited from the unemployed.
At the same time, billions have been handed out to the banks and multinationals. Ironically, Parliament has decreed that the Netherlands should not be called a ‘tax haven’, even though the whole world knows it is one. At the same time, because of the quantitative easing policies and the ‘bankers’ bonanza, workers wanted part of the pie back, which lead to huge protests and strike actions, outside and overtaking the unions. In the healthcare sector in 2015–6 and education, there were huge demonstrations and multiple strike actions, often involving 65–85.000 on any given day.
The tide had to turn, every analysis showed that capitalism was winning and there were also reports which said if you fight back, you will recruit. This, combined with the chaos within the union that had resulted from the leadership sell-outs on the social contracts led to a new mood developing in the FNV. At the 2017 National Conference, the only candidate for the Chair, Han Busker, declared “a fightback is necessary”. He promised to campaign for “no more cuts, no retreats, but a national campaign for an indexed and decent pension, national healthcare, a 14 euro minimum wage, a redistribution of work and wealth. For a fundamental change!”
His words were transformed into official union policy to bring to an end “consultation-economy policies” and replace them with a serious campaign of protests and strikes to win our demands, under the banner of the FNV Offensive.
Since then we have tried, often combining and coordinating workers in action, supported by other layers such as pensioners and the unemployed, to fight on concrete and fighting demands with some success. But after the successful Public Transport strike in March and May 2019, a deal was quickly conjured up so that the momentum would not grow out of control.
As a concession to those who would possibly oppose the new pension plan, they promised that the increase in the pension age would be frozen and would only go up to 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2025. They added that a new system would be worked out in which the “rekenrente” (actuarial interest) would not play a role, as long as the existing system was dismantled. This would lead to a better chance of indexation, all to be worked out by a special commission. This was the Retirement-deal which was railroaded through within 4 weeks in June 2019 and since then has lost the FNV 9000 members every month.
The Union bureaucracy, fulfilling its promises of 2006 organised a hasty and terribly biased referendum, in which just over 37% of the members voted, with 75% in favour and 25% against. These results were used to put extra pressure on the delegates to the National Council, who were responsible for deciding the union’s position. On the 15th June 2019, 26 delegates voted against, myself explaining afterwards on Dutch television why we voted against.
And thus, after a year of closed negotiations in which they have tried to turn lead into gold, we are now told to give up any expectations of a decent income, a state and/or company pension. They literally argued that we should “give up those rights for which we have already paid in our contracts, if we expect less, we will worry less!” By trying to sell this deal now in this way has simply infuriated people. Now resistance to this deal is growing.
All this, of course, means it is necessary to have a union fighting for workers’ interests, rather than one consisting of more or less gifted intermediaries for the ruling class. The veil has now been torn off, and because of our actions the underlying pitfalls and inroads to privatisations have come to the fore. More delegates have now openly spoken out against this deal. A readiness to undertake strike action to force a better one is there in crucial sectors such as public transport. This will be even more necessary to thwart the coming attacks. The Dutch Social and Cultural Planning Bureau predict a possible economic decline of 3% for 2021 due to the coming world recession and Dutch dependence on exports.
A Split in the Making?
The union apparatus did everything in its power to get a “yes” vote. However, some sectors are already prepared to undertake strike action to at least gain their share of the meagre offerings. The likelihood of a more open fight or even a split in the biggest trade union federation FNV, which almost occurred in 2013–2014, between the combative sectors and the conciliators will then be the most likely outcome. There has been a small tradition of class-conscious opposition in the FNV, around the dockers and railway workers and, of course, in the group “Fight for your rights”, a network of active socialists in which we also have played a role. As we have been arguing all along, capitalism can’t solve our problems, as it is capitalism that causes them. We need a socialist alternative. We have introduced a new set of demands for a Fighting Union to counter these effects.
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We demand
32 hour working week without loss of pay, which is now official union policy;
14 euro minimum wage, which is also official union policy, although it is still 12% too low according to the ETUC;
Social welfare and state pension of 1500 euro a month;
Indexation for every generation — a sliding scale for wages and benefits;
Retirement age to return to 65, to be easily financed by restoring the 5,3% instead of 5,1% first tax-rate, which has been used to lower taxes on profit and higher incomes!;
No lay-offs, open the books. No state support for companies laying off workers, but nationalisations under workers control and management to save jobs;
Renationalise all public services and key sectors of the economy under workers control and management, so that the workers can start to plan the economy on the basis of their needs.
It will be along these lines a new layer of fighting cadre is taking shape and commitment is growing among the ranks to fight back. Myriads of groups of pensioners, angry union members have come out in all kind of social media against this agreement and different member protests have also taken place. A rallying point is needed. Niek Stam, FNV official for the dockworkers has publicly stated he will campaign as the new Chair for the FNV in the now postponed election of November 2020. New layers are coming into action. A fighting program for a fighting Union will be the best catalyst for the growing influence of Marxism and a socialist alternative in the organised Dutch working class.
