9 September 2022 by Dooitze de Jong
Hans Borstlap and Kees Buitendijk spoke on 31 August 2022 about the value of work and a new social issue that is broader than just economic, but also social, cultural and spiritual. The CSC part session was initiated by Hans Bruning (Socires) and Mireille Keereweer (SBI Format). The session was organized by CSC, Socires, and VNO-NCW in cooperation with SBI Format.
Hans Borstlap on the value of work
What country do we want to work in? Borstlap notes that current industrial relations are distorted. The Netherlands is a highly productive country and yet a comprehensive surcharge system is needed that millions of Dutch people depend on to get around. The current system of taxes and surcharges discourages people from doing more
work while there is a screaming labour shortage. Negligible themes such as energy, climate, nitrogen and housing have been reappeared and billions are going to go, but with which people? The labour market is in danger of becoming the bottleneck of implementation. Those who want to get to work do not find a match to the huge demand, which, according to Borstlap, is due to a lack of manoeuvrability, resilience, reciprocity and clarity. But how did we end up here?
Causes
We are in this situation because of outdated labour law and education law. But also the cuts in executive agencies such as UWV and municipalities have further aggravated the problem.
Employers are stuck by all legal certainty on fixed contracts, while employees have an extremely uncertain situation without a social safety net. Moreover, labour law does not cover flex workers. On the other hand, there is little possibility of continuing training in a very dynamic and rapidly changing labour market.
The compulsory education up to 16 years old dates from 1969. But knowledge is ageing so fast nowadays and people are changing jobs more often and this compulsory education is no longer enough. You're not out of practice after your 16th, but after that, employees have to develop. Now this responsibility lies in consultation between the employee and the employer, but that often prevents development from taking place outside the industry, and that makes the employee vulnerable.
Hans Borstlap by Etienne Oldeman Photography
Solutions
The solution is not to move towards more labour immigration, but to make the labour market work better. Resilience, resilience, reciprocity and clarity are central to the necessary reforms.
Resilience is about the relationship between employer and employee. Chestlap proposes to promote internal manoeuvrability and to inhibit external flexibility. Fixed employment is flexible in a way that is good for both employer and employee: four days a week and a day flexible. In combination with a learning account, the employee can continue to develop in the direction of his choice on a non-life insurance day. Financially speaking, a learning account ultimately pays back.
Weability is to create "a broad foundation that provides protection against higher risks." This concerns, for example, a collective disability insurance scheme. At present employees are still insured with employers but ZZP are often not (for duration). This leads to an uneven playing field and high risk performance for ZZP. Reciprocity is about the relationship between workers, employers and the collective. If workers receive more collective support, they must also be actively involved and contribute. Clarity: The system of contract forms should be more transparent and three "driving lanes" with clear criteria: self-employed, contract workers and temporary workers.
Labour must return to wages
In the end, wages at the base of the labour market must be raised first and foremost, thereby reducing the surcharges. The relationship between labour taxation and capital must be: "The incentives to work are now wrong," says Borstlap.
Would you like to know more? Read the report "What kind of country do we want to work in?" Regulation of the Commission (2020).
Kees Buitendijk's "exegese" of the lecture
Kees Buitendijk points to the story of Borstlap about labour in the 21st century as part of a new social issue. According to Buitendijk, work can be approached not only with figures and laws, but also in a social and moral sense. The social issue is broader than deteriorating working conditions, more than material prosperity and security of existence. It is also about social, cultural and spiritual prosperity.
The social question before us Exterior dike on the basis of The Upswing (2020) by leading politician Robert Putnam. Putnam used empirical research to show a wave movement. At the end of the nineteenth century, a upswing It is a revival of economic equality, political, social and cultural issues, but it has been brought down after the end of the sixties.
Putnam, The Upswing, 10.
With the disclaimer that this empirical research was not done in the Netherlands, Buitendijk also sees that the Netherlands has fallen into the same downward movement. And there is also Dutch research. He refers to Kim Putters Cranes (Promothew, 2019) and the research report Atlas van Afhaakt Netherlands (PDF) of Josse de Voogd and René Cuperus (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, December 2021).
According to Buitendijk, Putnam's general movement of individualism towards communityism can also be recognized in the Netherlands and the European continent. The first period of the "social quaestation" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to the construction of the welfare state, social renewal and new forms of organization. This led to the heyday of the Arend Lijphart: a period of intensive cooperation and agreement. The third period is defined by the container concept of "neoliberalism," a period of growing inequality, polarising politics, increasing individualisation, and decreasing social involvement.
The downward trend and the alternative
"Why does it crumble," asks Buitendijk? According to philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the world of life has been replaced by the system world. But the cause is not one reason, but a sum of factors. But what's the alternative?
Margaret Thatcher argued TINA ("There is no alternative"). When this pertains to labour, globalisation, digitisation and platforming happen to us, and we need to be flexible, agile and resilient. In the story of Borstlap there is a neoliberal touch of resistance and maneuverability: surf the waves of an uncontrolled system. Putnam turns against TINA. An alternative can take shape, but what that looks like is hard to say in advance. There are a number of conditions: a moral revival with moral leadership and the awareness that it is a common task, that it concerns everyone. Change comes from political decisions less than from society. Society organises itself in a new way, for example through trade unions and associations in which people have participation.
What's next?
Buitendijk says that old forms of organisation no longer fit well. New ways of organizing are needed. The crisis is deeply felt and therefore the need and opportunity to move in a new direction. But are the signals picked up, how and by whom? What new structures will be created to help us to turn the social question of the 21st century to a new upswing?
The session was organised as part of the Christian-Social Congress. That betrays her history. The first conference was organized in 1891 by ds. Abraham Kuyper who was concerned with the little luyden. Since 2000, the congress has been held annually. For more information, visit foundation-csc.nl.
Etienne Oldeman Photography