5. Assessing the Scope for Advancing WTR Initiatives in the Netherlands
5.2 Actor’s Perspectives:
“The mental health of workers. And that's a problem too. Many burnouts. Lots of costs to employers. We have population of 9.4 four million working people in the Netherlands, at the moment 1.3 million has a burnout. That is nearly 15 percent, and it costs employers 1.8 billion euros a year. The costs to society are much higher. So that's a big problem too. And the costs to society are the costs of Health Care, it can be 7.9 billion Euros a year. So that's the reason why we thought, maybe it's a good idea to work shorter” (de Jong, 2022:6:57)
This demonstrates how respondents frame social issues in an economic context. Framing economic issues in relation to their social benefits was less common and happened only with regards to the social equity achieved through women’s economic independence. This suggests that respondents perceived a hierarchy amongst the potential benefits of WTR. It seems that for the unions the social benefits of WTR required further justification in the form of additional cost saving effects achieved through greater productivity or lower healthcare costs. However, this appeared to be a strategic effort to broaden the appeal of WTR to employers and other actors motivated by profit, as issues like work life balance, stress, gender equity, and mental health were discussed at greater length and in more detail before being framed in terms of financial gains at the conclusion.
Notably, union actors did not initially discuss the environmental benefits of WTR. When the topic came up through follow up questions, respondents from both trade unions discussed the positive environmental effects of working from home, but did not frame these effects in the context of working time reductions.
Qualitative responses concerning interviewee’s perception of the potential costs and barriers to work time reduction in the Netherlands revealed responses across two themes: (1) the perceived economic (un)feasibility of WTR, and (2) a lack of demand for shorter working hours.
Regarding theme 1, respondents identified several economic barriers to WTR implementation. The most discussed barrier was a shortage of workers. The FNV stated
“at this moment, it's not our first priority and that's also because of lack of workers in the Netherlands… now let's say two or three years ago we were thinking about 32 hour work week, but it was never our first path. So now we see that there's a lack of work force in the Netherlands… so it is not our moment to completely go for that [WTR]” (Kager, 2022:3:53).
The CNV identified similar barriers, though ascribed these views to the government and employers’ associations:
“the government likes to get workers to make more hours instead of less…And the
employers fear that job offers will stand open and vacancies will not be filled. There are at this time big problems to get people in the Health Service, in technical jobs, in
education, or jobs in the catering industry... And the other fear of the government is for declining tax income and the affordability of Social Security” (de Jong, 2022:14:36).
In response to these concerns, the CNV argues that a transition to a 30-hour work week can happen gradually over the span of several years, allowing sectors with a labour shortage time to adjust (CNV, 2019:15)
Theme two differed across the two unions. Whereas the CNV reported that their members desired WTR’s, the FNV said their members
“don't press us or say to us ‘Well, we would really like to work less’… a few years ago we thought there might be a lot of work less in the future, but the actual situation is that there's a lot of work… and a lack of people who do the job. But if our members in certain sectors say, ‘we would really like to work less’… we are going to negotiate about that.”
(Kager, 2022:7:45)
Responses concerning interviewee’s perception of their own and other’s ability to
exercise power over WTR initiatives revealed that interviewees mainly focused on theme (1) the reinforcive power of governmental actors, and focused less on theme (2) unions ability to
mobilize resources. Both trade unions perceived that the Dutch government was opposed to collective working time reduction for economic reasons. The representative from the CNV stated that
“This government is not very happy with our proposal… at the moment, the liberal government… they leave it to the companies…. It's very neoliberal at the moment in the Netherlands. Yeah, so leave it to the markets. That's its strategy.” (de Jong, 2022:31:03) Regarding theme two, both unions acknowledged their own capacity to exercise power towards WTR initiatives in the form of lobbying and negotiating for collective bargaining agreements.
However, while striking is the ‘ultimate weapon’ for unions, “it's not a proposal we are going to strike for” (Ibid:16:13).
5.2.2 Market Actors
Market actors were selected for their relevant experience with WTR initiatives. Initially as many as three actors in the private sector with relevant experience were identified, however, ultimately interviews were only conducted with one. Representatives for Achmea, a financial company that owns several large Dutch healthcare providers, could not be reached. Similarly, representatives from Dell declined to be interviewed. An interview was conducted with Gillian Robles, a creative partner at a Dutch firm that trialed a four-day work week in February of 2020.
Roble’s company was one of the first in the Netherlands to trial four day working. This drew the interest of the CNV, who met with Robles and later proposed a 30 hour work week.
Qualitative responses concerning interviewee’s perception of the potential benefits of work time reduction and opportunities for implementation in the Netherlands revealed responses across two themes. These included (1) the potential for reduced work hours to enhance
productivity, and (2) WTR’s contribution to work-life balance.
Robles said the trial began in an effort to improve worker’s happiness while increasing productivity:
“We just said, what if they work less and they could spend more time with either their family or sports or anything like that? So, they might feel better… in the hours they have left. So, 32 in our case, they might be more, you know, productive and more happy.”
(Robles, 2022:2:23).
However, while union actors indicated they were aware of WTR’s effect on work life balance and productivity, this was not the case for the firm Roble’s worked at. Rather than being inspired by the academic literature, the leadership style was guided by an ‘open culture’:
“We try to just think of some stuff and then just do it. And we didn't know we were the first or one of the first companies [to trial four-day work] when we started it” (Robles, 2022:3:25).
Notably, the environmental benefits of WTR were not a factor in the decision to trial WTR.
Responses concerning the costs and barriers to WTR related to two themes: (1) profit, and (2) worker reluctance. Regarding theme one, Robles reported that while the firm had been expecting productivity gains to allow the same volume of work to be completed in less time, this did not happen:
“in the end for us, the numbers didn't add up. Because the basic business thought behind it was that you would be more efficient in those 30 to 32 hours, that didn't happen as much as it should for the company results, to still be good.” (Ibid:11:28).
Consequently, the trial did not resume after the pandemic.
Regarding theme two, the interviewee noted that initially 10-20% of employees were
‘hesitant’ to switch to a four-day week, as well as one employee who ‘hated’ the idea:
“we asked her why she was… not happy with it because we thought everybody would love it, but she actually likes her work. She likes to work. Five days a week. She likes doing that.” (Ibid:4:15).
Interestingly, the respondent did not report any legal or administrative barriers to implementing WTR. Instead of legally changing contracts, the firm simply left contractual working hours the same but “gave them a different assignment for those eight hours” (Ibid:10:00).
Responses concerning the interviewee’s ability to exercise power over WTR initiatives revealed a broad discretion for the partners of the firm to implement what they saw fit. After the initial idea had been proposed,
“we kind of just discussed it in one of our meetings with all the employees and then we just said … this is what we think and hope it might do, and we're going to try this for one month” (Ibid:10:47).
In contrast to other actors, the partners at Robles’ firm appeared to have the power to implement what they chose without excessive influence from other actors. And as previously noted, this was not impacted by legal or administrative barriers because contracts were left untouched rather than formally switched to 32 hours.
5.2.3 Third Sector: Academics & Research Institutes
Actors from the Third sector were selected for their relevant expertise in labour studies and transition management. These included Professor John Grin, an expert in transition
management, and Professor Paul de Beer, a researcher for the Amsterdam Institute of Advanced Labour Studies and member of the board of the Dutch Association for Industrial Relations.
Qualitative responses concerning interviewee’s perception of the potential benefits of work time reduction and opportunities for implementation in the Netherlands revealed responses across two themes: (1) leisure time and potential social benefits, and (2) sustainability.
Relating to theme one, Professor d Beer argued:
“the main social benefit I would say is that people indeed, get more leisure time and might also contributes to sharing employment among more people, although, that impact is not that clear as is sometimes assumed by proponents of work time reduction” (de Beer, 2022: 1:34).
Professor Grin related these developments to the potential effect on gender equity, saying
“One other trend that I can imagine is the trend in thinking about the division between paid labor and care at home. So basically, it's two different things for male and for female… Females increasingly want to do paid labor but.. are hindered by childcare provisions. And men actually do increasingly want to take care of their children…But one way to think about it is to design work time reduction in such a way that it would solve the problem.” (Grin, 2022:9:33).
Relating to theme two, Professor de Beer discussed the effects of WTR on the economy and the environment:
“the main economic effect would be indeed… [a] shift from economic growth in terms of more production to…an increase of welfare, but more in terms of leisure time while reducing the growth rates of physical production and that is, of course, directly related I would say to the ecological or environmental aspect of it, if it indeed results in less
production, especially less physical production this might also contribute to the sustainability of the economy.”
Responses concerning interviewee’s perception of the potential costs and barriers to WTR
revealed two themes: (1) economic (un)feasibility of WTR, and (2) the reinforcive power of state and market actors. Relating to theme one, both interviewees discussed how individual’s incomes may affect support for WTR. Professor Grin noted that translating increased productivity into leisure instead of income may be perceived as “telling some people that you should not want to be rich” (Grin, 2022:1:01). De Beer argued that employers would demand a reduction of pay in exchange for WTR and questioned if WTR that did not also produce pay increases would be popular.
“I'm curious, whether the members of CNV would be happy if for a number of years they would get no pay increase because the number of working hours will be reduced. And I'm quite sure that there will be certain groups who will claim that they need more income more than reduction of working hours” (de Beer, 2022:15:17)
Other barriers discussed included the labour shortage and the ‘traditional economic point of view’. De Beer argued that if
“you suggest that our wealth should be measured by GDP, and if you need to take that very traditional point of view, then of course, it's immediately clear that working career time reduction will lead to less growth of GDP and therefore will create costs.” But I think there is among economists broad agreement that GDP is a very imperfect measure of wealth” (de Beer, 2022:6:50)
He went on to suggest that the measuring the ‘costs’ of WTR was a subjective matter:
“if you look really at look at cost in terms of wellbeing or even happiness of the
population, it's very much questionable whether there are any costs at all. And at least you should say those costs are purely subjective. So, I think there is no sensible way of measuring costs of working shorter hours, in objective monetary way. Of course, you can do it again. You can measure differences in GDP, but I don't think that's a very useful way to measure” (de Beer, 2022:8:07).
Finally, in response to questions concerning actors’ ability to exercise power towards WTR, two themes were discerned: (1) the power of unions and employers, and (2) the role of academics as
‘reflexive practitioners’.
De Beer noted that the power of unions has been reduced since the 1980’s and contended that market actors – employers – have the most power towards WTR initiatives. While hours are part of collective labour agreements,
“unions are not very powerful, but also are not really stressing to reduce the number of hours. It will remain this number of hours because I think Employers usually do not have an incentive to change the number of hours… if the employer wants to reduce the
working week, then the unions often do not resist very strongly against that wish of the employer” (de Beer, 2022:22:05)
Regarding the power of academics, Professor Grin emphasized how academics can influence transition processes such as WTR by taking the role of a ‘reflexive practitioner’. Reflexive practitioners look from a wider perspective to critically guide practices in way ordinary
participants are unable to do, for example by questioning norms around notions of efficiency and effectiveness and reframing issues to make new paths clear (Grin, 2022:33:14).
5.2.4 State Actors
While interviews with State actors could not be conducted, ‘the State’s’ view on work can be approximated using a speech from the President of the House of Representatives concerning part time work and the CNV’s WTR proposal. The government argues that in the context of the labour shortage and an expensive welfare state, policy should encourage individuals to work more hours:
‘expanding the number of hours…offers opportunities not only for the individual, but also for society. An aging society needs sufficient shoulders to bear the burden of our welfare state.’
(Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Wekrgelegenheid, 2020).
In response to the CNV’s proposal it was stated:
‘The government does not see this as the solution to the pressure on workers to combine work and private life. However… the government does share the CNV's analysis that the pressure on workers must be relieved’ (Ibid:12)
Rather, the government looks to relieve pressure through policies like parental leave, or by providing tax incentives for women to work longer hours so they can earn higher income (Ibid:4-5). In this regard, the government looks to the ‘social partners’ including trade unions to
“promote the extension of hours worked” by negotiating collective labour agreements which harmonize work and care responsibilities, for example through parental leave (Ibid: 11).
Altogether, the government is opposed to WTR’s and is looking to find opportunities for people to work more hours on a sectoral basis so they can better contribute to the Dutch economy.