Dutch politics – Page 22

A new climate of union militancy?

Published on December 31, 2005

It might just be that I’m paying more attention to it, but it does seem to me that 2005 saw a rise in union militancy, at least in the Netherlands. There were several big strikes this year and even better, several union victories as a result. In this context, 2005 may have seen the end of union complacency, after more than a decade of compliant negotiating and ever crumbling workers rights.

Ongoing throughout the year and continuing from last year were the municipality workers strikes for a
better collective working agreement, with as highpoint the garbage collectors’ actions in Amsterdam
during SAIL 2005, the biggest tourist event of the year. Keeping the municipalities under pressure
throughout the year worked in forcing through a more generous agreement.

striking firefighters in Amsterdam

After the unions and the municipalities finally reached an agreement, there was still one sticking point:
mandatory retirement at 55 for workers in high risk jobs like firefighters or ambulance staff. The unions and municipalities had agreed to end this, but the firefighters themselves went on a wildcat strike to protect this right. They won a modest victory by forcing through partial retirement at 55 and full retirement at 59, rather than having to work fulltime in “a low risk function” after 55.
The restructuring of Avebe, an agricultural company specialising in potato products, which had been in
trouble for some years now, led to one of the longest continuing strikes of the year. The restructuring
would lead to loss of some 150 jobs. The dispute was not about the job loss perse as it was about how
it would be achieved. The two and a half week strike resulted in a more generous social plan for the fired employees, with 15 months of continued employment instead of six. What is more, the company
lost the lawsuit it had filed against the union in order to force an end to the strike. If the company had
won the suit, it would’ve made it that much more difficult for unions to strike elsewhere.

strikers at Shell

At Shell, the strike for better pension rights, achieved a partial succes. The retirement age for current workers stays at 60 like the unions wanted, but will still be set to 65 for new employes; however, the unions managed to get Shell to still (partially) pay for workers who want to retire at 60. Thanks to this strike the union also managed to get similar results for the workers of the Total and Nerefco oil refineries.
At Smit Tak, perhaps the world’s biggest salvage and harbour towage company, three strikes were
necessary to get better deals for both salvage and towage workers. This included not just an above
inflation wage rise, but also better compensations for working abroad, overtime and a better disability
compensation scheme.
Finally, harbour workers in general have been in action several times this year to protest against the
abandonment of ILO convention 137, whicharranges that only qualified, registrered harbour workers can load and unload ships. Both government andemployers have declared to be no longer committed to this convention, to “ensure a better competitive position for the Dutch harbours”. At the same time, the harbour workers are also
resisting the EU Port Package 2 directive, which again would weaken the strong position of harbour workers throughout Europe. Historically, harbour workers, thanks to Europe and even worldwide conventions have not had to engage in the kind of “race to the bottom” competition their employers would like to see, so it is no wonder they are now forcefully resisting attempts to instigate this through European law.

So will this newfound militancy last and have consequences beyond the immediate improvement of some workers’ rights? The Netherlands is still ruled by a rightwing, neoliberal government bent on enforcing a “sound business climate” on the country and the same holds for the European Union. Its encouraging to see the unions think beyond the short term and to fight for more than just immediate benefits for their members, but a hell of a lot more needs to be done both nationally and internationally, will they be able to cure the rot that set in during the last decades. At the moment the unions are still largely defending previously won rights, not gaining new ones.

VVD shows common sense

Published on November 1, 2005

You would not believe it of a conservative, neoliberal party like the VVD, but sometimes they still show a glimmer of common sense: they have announced that they will vote against the plans of Justice minister Donner to criminalise any “glorification” of terrorism. Which means that this proposal is effectively dead.

Which is good news for those of us who value freedom of speech. We don’t need more dubious laws to deal with a terrorist threat which, upcoming anniversary of the murder of Theo van Gogh notwithstanding is largely imaginary. You don’t stop terrorists by criminalising a class of free speech; you stop them with good police work –true, not something our “bromsnorren” are good at, but still.

Things can still change of course. The various coalition partners do have a nasty habit of taking
principled stands when they can score points easily only to fold at the crunch, when it really matters.

We’ll see.

Bijlmerramp

Published on October 4, 2005

On October 4th, 1992, at 18:35 in the evening, an El Al Boeing 747 freight plane landed on two flat buildings in Amsterdam South East, in the Bijlmer district. At least 43 people died in this disaster. It was a disaster that struck hard in the poor, close knit Bijlmer community, with many people losing nnot just a friend, family member or co-worker, but also their homes. A horrible tragedy, but nothing special: aircraft accidents do happen after all. However, there’s more to it than that…

Some months after the accident, rumours leaked out and were published in the newspapers about men in moonsuits having been on the accident site. Though later research would officially state that these rumours were just confused eyewitness reports about rescue workers, doubt kept existing about these sightings.

After the accident, the Amsterdam health care organisations arranged aftercare for the survivors of the disaster and the people living nearby. They started noticing that a lot of people came to them with strange physical complaints: sleeping disorders, chronical pulmonary infections, impotence, bowel and stomach pains. At around the same time, it became known that the Boeing carried depleted uranium as counterbalance weights; not unknown in airplanes but not very reassuring to the people suffering from those complains. Official reactions to questions about this stressed that no toxic, dangerous or radioactive cargo had been on board of the plane. However, what kind of cargo the plane carried exactly was still unclear. Officially it was all harmless stuff: fruit, perfume and “machine parts”, but there were other rumours.

Especially when it turned out that much of the cargo had not been checked, with not even the
documentation spot checked. Rumours that this cargo did contain dangerous elements therefore kept appearing. And then it became clear that the depleted uranium probably did release harmful toxins during the crash and resulting fire, with medical research done on survivors in march of 1998 showed they had higher levels of uranium in their bodies then was normal.

So what was El Al hiding and why did the Dutch government seem to support them in trying to cover
this up?

Well, we still don’t really know, though we do now know that the plane’s cargo was not as innocent as it first seemed. It’s only in 1999, seven years after the disaster that the whole truth becomes known. It turns out that there was some 6,5000 kilogram of dangerous substances on board, mostly flammable substances of one kind or another, as well as some toxic substances. Alos on board are two shipments of military cargo destined for the Israeli army. This cargo would largely consist of spare parts for DC3 cargo planes. More interestingly, the cargo also contained dimethyl methylphosphonate, a precursor chemical for the production of Sarin nerve gas… No wonder El Al tried to hide this.

All of this finally came to light during the parliamentary inquiry held in 1998-1999 (PDF report in Dutch here), after more and more had been reported or rumoured in the press and earlier inquiries. But is was only due to the consistent badgering by survivors and their supporters in the press and parliament (with my own party, the Dutch Socialist Party playing its part) that the inquiries came so far. If it had been for the then governments, El-Al and the aerospace establishment, all this would still be hidden.

Because that’s the default for the powers that be. With almost any disaster there will be hidden sides to the story, things They don’t want us, the public to know: because they fucked up, because of corruption or powerful commercial interests doing the wrong thing, deliberately or not. Politics will always play a role and if the victims are poor, they will be screwed over…

The long arm of US imperialism

Published on September 19, 20051 Comment

Antonio Bento Bembe

There are so many outrages being committed every day it is easy to miss them, so I’m grateful to the local free rag Spits for alerting me to this one. And quite an outrage it is too:

Antonio Bento Bembe is the secretary-general of the FLEC, which has at its aim the liberation of Cabinda, a small Angolan enclave within the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used to be a Portuguese colony independent from its Angolan colony; the FLEC was active against the Portuguese before it had to fight against the MPLA, the Angolan independent movement. The FLEC and the MPLA/Angolan government have been fighting for decades ever since the MPLA first invaded Cabinda in 1975.

Before Cabinda had become a Portuguese colony, it had been a Dutch trading post, which may explain the continuing interest of the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs in the region; it has been acting as a neutral peace broker. It was in this capacity that Antonio Bento Bembe was invited to come to the Netherlands for peace talks. when he did so, he was arrested…

Turns out the United States, once it had learned Antonio Bento Bembe was in the Netherlands, had asked for his extradiction, allegedly because he was involved with the kidnapping of an American pilot in 1990 or 1991. So when he came to the Netherlands in June of this year, he was promptly arrested.

At first glance this just seems to be another example of American cack-handedness; favouring domestic concerns above foreign political realities. Tactless and stupid, but not actively malicious. A second look however reveals that there might be more to the story. As per usual, the whole affair might just revolve around one little word:

Oil.

It turns out most of Angola’s oil production is coming from Cabina, of which the American oil company Chevron has the lion’s share (39.2%, according to Wikipedia). Angolan oil –as noted, largely Cabinan– at the moment also accounts for 4% of the US’ oil imports. The Angolan government is very favourable towards the US and Chevron, a newly independent Cabina might not be, especially since little of the oil profits flow into the province itself, the industry causes huge pollution within it and Angola is harsh in repressing any “unrest”.

Now that pilot that was supposedly kidnapped, was working for Chevron at the time. Who else was working for Chevron before she became Bush’s handler? Guess who signed the extradition request?

It would be just like the Bushies to fuck up a fledgling peace process by wanting to arrest one of the participants, just to make sure America (and Chevron) gets that all important oil…

Maroc.nl has a good overview of the affair, though sadly only in Dutch.

A nice little earner

Published on April 22, 2005

According to the Utrechts Nieuwsblad the Dutch police has managed to fine 177 people a day for not carrying a valid I.D. since this was made compulsory for everybody over 14 years earlier this year. Total income for the state: 800,000 euro.

A nice little earner that.