More power for the worker! But how? – Skating Newspaper

Yes, we are at the peak of the economic cycle wave. The economy is doing well, unemployment is low and, according to De Nederlandsche Bank economists, the real income after fifteen lean years is finally growing exponentially. Nevertheless, economists from the OECD and Rabobank felt warned last week of problems in the job market. In a nutshell: The share of flexible workers and self-employed workers has increased so rapidly that it reduces wages and the protection that a job offers. The recent increase in the number of people with a permanent contract does not take anything away from that. Solution by Oeso and Rabobank: Reduce differences between individual and permanent employees – differences in protection and tax burden for workers, and costs and risks for employers.

Either exactly what Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA) wanted years ago with its new rules for dismissal and flexible work. More people with a permanent contract, fewer people with uncertain jobs. "A thoroughbred who will continue to cross our labor market for decades." This is how Asscher (PvdA) described the law that should have become the culmination of his ministry (Social Affairs).

Last Friday, three years after the introduction of Asscher's law, his successor Wouter Koolmees (D66) sent a new law to the State Council. The rules of dismissal and flexibility change again. The racehorse is shot: Great Tit returns some of Asscher's plans. But his goal is exactly the same: more people with a permanent contract.

Would it work? To date, economists have been less critical of Koolmees' plans than Asscher's. But his large-scale intervention in the freelance market has yet to prove whether it is feasible at all. Koolmees wants to appoint less paid freelancers as employees. He then says, so to speak: you earn so little, you are a false self-employed worker.

Behind the two laws, there is not only a difference of opinion. Roughly speaking, I would summarize this difference as follows: Asscher has mainly opted for more protection, which is not the case with Koolmees. Behind the two laws, there is also a problem that politicians throughout the West vote desperately: the weak position of the workers. In the UK and US market economies, politicians and economists are now discussing bloody serious ideas such as basic income and a federal job guarantee (a kind of Melkertbanen). They are not very lucky to be imported, but it shows that the confidence of their economies in creating valuable jobs is decreasing.

Precisely because employees from all over the West are not strong, the question is whether another law will help. The rules of dismissal and flexibility vary enormously from one country to another, but the trend is similar in many places. Maybe more radical policies are needed. The British magazine The Economist suggested in May that the power of workers declines because companies are getting bigger and bigger. If a few large companies dominate a sector, there is little to negotiate for employees. Perhaps the much stricter competition policy and even the separation of big business is the only way to support employees.

Marike Stellinga is an economist and political journalist. She writes about politics and economics at this location every week.