The First Part-TIME Economy in the World
Does it Work?
Union density among women is much lower than among males, even in the same industries
and occupations. However, by the mid-1980s, provoked by the severe membership crisis of
the early 1980s when the trade unions lost scores of members and union density dropped
from 35 to 25 per cent in less than ten years, Dutch unions became more outwardly oriented.
Rather than sticking to the views of their (ageing) members, they started asking non-
members what they expected from the union. Gradually, the unions moved mentally away
from the male breadwinner, at the time still the majority among the membership albeit by a
rapidly decreasing margin. In 1993 already 44 per cent of all union members came from
households with two jobs and earnings (Klandermans and Visser 1995).
In addition there was a very strong and effective lobby of women within unions - in fact,
the share of women among union staff is much stronger than in the membership at large.
Increasingly, women activists make it to the ranks of executive union officials (although
they missed the post of FNV chairperson - it is not yet Scandinavia). One of the effects of
the stronger presence of women in union politics was the campaign for improvement of the
rights of part-timers, based on the view that part-time employment was the preferred form of
employment of women with children. Upgrading of the rights, earnings, security and status
of part-time employment should make these jobs more attractive for male workers as well.
A right to switch from full-time to part-time jobs, and the removal of all remaining elements
of discrimination on the basis of working hours, should contribute to this strategy of
‘normalisation’ of part-time employment.
Recent collective agreements do acknowledge this development and try to improve on
facilities and rights. In 1993 the Foundation of Labour - in which Dutch unions co-operate
with the central employers’ federations - published an important report titles
‘Considerations and recommendations to promote part-time work and differentiation of
working hours’. Employers and unions jointly recommended that a request by an employee
to adapt his or her working hours should be granted, unless this could not reasonably be
expected on grounds of conflicting business interests (with a burden of proof on employers).
This formula is now part of most collective agreements (in 1995: 60 per cent of all
agreements contained a clause to this effect). An initiative bill in Parliament to create a legal
right to part-time work was defeated, but a new initiative will probably succeed. Unions put
also pressure on the removal of disadvantages and in 1996 eighty percent of all collective
agreements have established pro rata wages and fringe benefits.
5.3 Employers
In the early 1980s, the central employers’ federations present part-time as a possible
alternative for collective working time reduction. For employers, part-time employment is
preferred because the reduction in hours is a reduction in pay, allows differentiation across
groups of workers (depending on their value for the company or scarcity in the market) and
brings actual and contractual working hours nearer as part-time workers tend to be sick in
their own time. The disadvantage of higher fixed labour costs and co-ordination costs may
be recaptured through higher productivity and flexibility (RCO 1980, 1983).
Despite their ideological offensive, employers often refuse a shift to part-time employment
when employees want to work less hours. However, to the degree that for instance female
employees have higher skill and more years of experience, employers tend to provide either
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