Work

Recently, a cleaner at Schiphol Airport was about to be sacked after he had discussed conditions in the cleaning sector in a publication of union federation FNV. The SP wants the municipality to improve the protection of whistle-blowers, including those not directly employed by the municipality.

The dismissal of the cleaner has been put on hold after his co-workers held a protest last Friday, followed by massive support for the cleaner at the website of popular newspaper De Telegraaf. However, the case shows that whistle-blowers are not properly protected in Amsterdam, Laurens Ivens (SP) said.

In Amsterdam, 10,000 young people will become unemployed next year and a shortage of work placements will only make things worse. It has to be feared that unemployment among ethnic minority youth may approach 40 to 45%, policy advisor Rutger Groot Wassink of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation FNV writes in a column in Mug Magazine.

Groot Wassink expects that measures to deal with the crisis will also benefit ethnic minority youth, but he argues for additional measures in order to deal with their structural problems. Local social policies should focus on jobs rather than barbecues intended to boost social cohesion.

Read the entire column here. Photo Arjen Veldt

District council member Henk de Boer (CDA) from Zuidoost calls on ethnic minorities to stop work on 9 November, in response to a request of the PVV to the government to calculate the costs and benefits of ethnic minorities. By going on strike, they can demonstrate their worth, De Boer argues on his weblog.

9 November is the date of birth of poet and member of the resistance H.M. van Randwijk (1909 – 1966). Van Randwijk is known among other things for his verse “A nation that yields to tyrants will lose more than body and goods - the light goes out.”

Photo: Luijt / Wikipedia

Under the slogan ‘Let the rich pay for the crisis’, left-wing organisations plan to besiege the Dutch national bank (DNB) on 26 September. They distance themselves from the slogan ‘Fighting the crisis together’, used by the regular union confederations, which would focus too much on collaboration with banks, corporations and the government.

The initiators argue for saving jobs instead of banks and for cancelling mortgage interest relief above 350,000 euro, a re-introduction of the 72% tax rate above 175,000 euro and ‘making better use of the over 2 million euro per day the Afghanistan mission is costing’.

[By Laurent Chambon] - Unemployment in the Netherlands is on the rise, I have proof of it. My indisputable indicator? The checkout at Albert Heijn, the neighbourhood supermarket. A year ago, in the middle of the economic upturn, the cashier was a pimply-faced Moroccan adolescent, the lowest of the lowest of all available employees. At normal times, the check-out is operated by a girl wearing a headscarf, the standard cashier in Amsterdam. Here, since a couple of months, rather young men of Dutch origin are working at the checkout. A sign that they have been sacked by the chic clothes stores or are not selling any technological gadgets anymore. A sign that unemployment has risen awfully. The last time I met a cashier of Batavian origin was after the burst of the Internet bubble.

The number of ethnic shops employing people illegally has dropped considerably since the Labour Inspectorate has stepped up inspections and started educating entrepreneurs last year. It is as yet unclear whether the effect will be permanent. Later this year, the Inspectorate will start collaborating with the tax authority, unemployment insurance, police and municipality in a special ‘intervention team’ for the Amsterdam retail sector.

In 2007, the Labour Inspectorate inspected almost a hundred ethnic shops in Amsterdam. Over one third were found to employ people illegally. Since the programme in De Baarsjes was launched, the number of violations dropped to 5% there. Nationally, violations occur mainly at dry cleaners, markets and bakeries. They often regard Bulgarians workers.