How long can ruling politicians firmly agree that an abuse must be tackled quickly and at the same time do little, without it becoming a laughing matter for everyone? If you look at the abuses surrounding migrant workers, the answer is: a very long time.
Part of the Dutch economy is a ruthless machine that brings people from abroad to work here for low wages and spits them out when they are no longer needed. It is a revenue model built on anonymized bulk labor. Partly within the law, often far beyond it. The Netherlands is a paradise for fraudulent employment agencies and for employers who rely on squeezing migrants. The economic benefits are for companies and for consumers. Society feels the pressure on homes, neighborhoods, healthcare and schools. The human price falls on migrants themselves.
This is not a peripheral phenomenon. Nearly 1 in 10 workers is a labor migrant, says Monique Kremer, professor and chairman of the Migration Advisory Council, around a million people. Roughly half receive the minimum wage or less. Every year they form a much larger group than the asylum migrants to whom this government gives so much energy.
The problems have been known for a long time. As early as 2011, an investigative committee of the House of Representatives wrote: “The Netherlands cannot afford to deliberate, explore and investigate any longer. We have to move on now.” There was no packing.
Nine years later, in 2020, a “booster team” led by SP member Emile Roemer overcame this. Roemer again noted that the treatment of migrant workers was too often poor. This undermines the social system, leads to a race to the bottom and is unfair competition for companies that are decent. Roemer provided a list of advice to politicians. “Haste is required.”
We are now four years further. Roemer’s advice was widely endorsed. But a crucial law that makes it more difficult to start a temporary employment agency has been postponed by the new cabinet. Reason: the government cannot find an operator who issues permits to employment agencies. There is also a threat of a legal duty of care that obliges hiring companies to register migrants with their home address. As a result, the government cannot monitor employers. “Then the whole approach collapses like a house of cards,” Roemer said in September NRC.
There is a huge elephant in The Hague. Everyone keeps walking around it
In the meantime, the problems are getting bigger. In fifteen years, the number of migrant workers quadrupled. Three quarters of eighteen large municipalities saw problems with migrant workers increase this year, according to a survey by Domestic Administration. Three out of five people living on the streets are migrant workers. After discharge they lose their place to sleep.
“Municipalities are becoming more critical: which companies do we actually want?” says Marthe Hesselmans, researcher at the Scientific Council for Government Policy. “But they can’t do it alone. In The Hague, for example, migrants who work in the neighboring municipality of Westland live. National policy is needed.”
Time and again, renowned committees and institutes say that the Netherlands can put a wrench in its revenue model – if politicians really want that. Make hiring companies accountable. Make it more difficult to set up and close employment agencies. Ban the proliferation of flexible constructions. Because every time a government closes one flex route, another is devised. Then migrants suddenly become self-employed or director-majority shareholders of their own BV.
You can read the reports cross-eyed. This year alone, the Migration Advisory Council issued two recommendations. In one, it advocated a ban on temporary contracts in certain sectors. Works well in the meat industry in Germany. The state demography committee led by CDA member Richard van Zwol was also clear: labor migration can be contained much more forcefully.
But governments shy away from that spoke in the wheel. “I think there is a fear of harming the interests of employers,” says Kremer. She cannot accept that the new cabinet is ordering investigations again: one among civil servants and one at the Social-Economic Council. While the SER was also asked for advice in 2014. “The approach takes so terribly long, it is apparently not a priority despite all the strong words.”
It has recently become fashionable to ask what kind of economy we want to be. Then you end up in an impossible discussion about sectors that the Netherlands should or should not want. It’s a recipe for endless talking again. Because you don’t close sectors from above.
This is about something else. This is about a reversal of thinking: if companies cannot find staff, there is not necessarily a staff shortage, but the pay is too low or the quality of the job is too poor. Hesselmans: “Work has sometimes been made so unattractive that people on benefits think: too much work. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Minister of Social Affairs and Employment Eddy van Hijum (NSC) spoke upon taking office harsh words about the meat sector. He is investigating whether he can ban temporary contracts. The crucial temporary employment agency law is ready. Once again an approach seems close. But for now it will remain just words, and The Hague will first produce more reports.
There is a huge elephant in The Hague. Politicians regularly say: big elephant – we really need to do something about it. And they walk around it again.