[The March 17 issue of Inprecor contains a report on the "New Rise of Workers Struggles in Northern Europe," from which the following has been excerpted.J
The official objective of the three weeks of strikes in the Netherlands in February 1977—the biggest strikes the country has seen in decades-was to win application of the interprofessional agreement on the sliding scale (which has been in effect since 1971) which the employers have tried to eliminate for 1977, and to win a more than 2% wage increase to compensate for previous losses in purchasing power.
The sliding scale functions very partial. ly and insufficiently in the Netherlands. The adjustment to the increase in the cost of living occurs with nine months' delay, which in a period of rapid inflation means important wage losses for the workers. The trade-union movement has no possibility of controlling calculation of the retail price index, which is worked out solely by the government and is often manipulated in a scandalous manner (in 1976 some price increases were deliberately left out of the calculation of the index; there is also a possibility that the recent increase in health insurance payments and hospital costs will also be eliminated from the calculation).
Nevertheless, the Dutch workers and unions consider that this gain, despite its inadequacies, does give some protection against the erosion of purchasing power. Thus, when the employers announced during the negotiations to renew contracts that the July 1 automatic adjustment of wages to the rise of the official price index between October 1976 and April 1977 would not be applied, this was regarded as a real provocation.
The second union demand relates to an overall gross wage increase of 2% for the mass of wage earners, an increase which was also rejected by the employers' associations. These associations then broke off negotiations with the unions.
The strikes came in two waves. The first was unleashed on February 16. By February 18 some 40,000 workers were on strike. Big demonstrations were held in Rotterdam (25,000), Utrecht (10,000), and Eindhoven (several thousand) on February 16. The following day there were mass demonstrations in The Hague, and the day after that (the first day of the strike in earnest)
there was a demonstration in Amsterdam.
This first strike wave had been supported by all the union federations and opposed by all the employers. But the latter were surprised by the combativity of the workers. The paralysis of the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam and the several-hours-long strike of the streetcar drivers in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht (who do not have the right to strike) broke up the employers' front. The KLM airlines company, with its 17,000 workers and employees, and the Ahold food trust, with employment rolls of 15,000, were the first to capitulate. The strike of several daily newspapers led the employers in the printing industry to reopen negotiations with the unions. A wildcat strike broke out in three bicycle companies-the only significant instance in which the union leaders were outflanked-and the same night the unions involved recognized the strike.
The employers then decided to reopen negotiations and gave in on the question of the sliding scale for 1977, while reserving the possibility of bringing the point up again in 1978. But they refused to grant the 2% increases.
Then there was a new surprise: Despite the fact that the Protestant unions broke the unity of the trade-union front, strikes spread in a second wave, affecting selected companies. Workers in the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam again played a leading role, as they had during the first wave. This time there was no generalized accord, but rather accords by industry (and sometimes by company). But in the great majority of cases, the 2% increases were granted.
It may thus be said that the Dutch workers won a victory. But the victory is limited, since the demands advanced were already the result of a compromise, since the 2% wage increases have been accompanied by productivity increases that average 4%, and above all since the tradeunion leaderships appear prepared to negotiate, during the coming year, over limiting the sliding scale to the "purified" index from which certain price increases (public services, social insurance charges, etc.) have been eliminated by government decision. The workers will thus have to exercise great vigilance to prevent new erosion of their purchasing power next year.