Marxist-Leninist Group (Red Morning), Netherlands

On the Rise and Fall of the "Polder Model"

The Netherlands is a peaceful country, but only if you stay in the house, watch television, and don’t go out on the street. Since the beginning of the nineties, there have been a great many trade-union strikes, on a scale that has not been seen since the fifties and sixties. This growing movement was stopped in 1994, or an attempt was made to stop it by focusing the masses’ desire for change on elections.

The Dutch bourgeoisie sought to form a government of national unity — this is called a purple government — to broaden its social basis in order to carry through its anti-crisis program. In 1994 this purple government was brought to power because only that government could carry out these measures and not have people "bust all the windows." This was not an automatic process, because the strike movement continued. The reformist party and the so-called liberal capitalist party agreed on an anti-crisis program. There was a story of a "workers’ party" against a capitalist party. This has now come to an end; it doesn’t work anymore.

1995 was the year with the most days lost to strikes, and the year with the biggest trade-union demonstrations in the history of the working class of the Netherlands. Decisive for the institution of the crisis program and the relative decline of the workers’ movement after 1994 was the policy of class collaboration, the Dutch "polder model," which was forced upon the union members by the Rightist, reformist union leadership. The other side of the coin is that most strikes in the Netherlands these days are unofficial, organized and carried out independently.

Our organization itself, at any rate in the places where we work — we are still a small organization—in a few cases was able to play a leading role in these strikes. The story is about the same as in all European imperialist countries.

I have to mention the results of this anti-crisis program of 1994-1998, since we’re the first in Europe. As a result of this program, of 6 million persons 1.5 million have no work or very little work. Forty percent of the workers have "flexible" jobs. 2.6 million have only part-time work, and permanent jobs are being replaced, i.e., filled by workers financed by the government through social security funds. There are many people who live on welfare, and there are almost one million people who live below the poverty line. The statistics show that the Netherlands is a magnificent country, but the employed and unemployed do not share in the wealth.

This class collaboration policy or "polder model" existed from 1994 to 1998. Last year there were elections; the same government returned to office. It introduced the euro — that was its job — and it had to ensure that the Netherlands behaved in line with the Maastricht treaties. But the arrogance displayed by this government and other parts of the bourgeoisie in the years 1994 through 1998, that arrogance disappeared when the effects of the spreading worldwide economic crisis also began to be felt in the Netherlands. They are afraid. And this fear of the future expresses itself in a growing inability to govern, and in many more situations where a crisis threatens to develop, in an increasing instability of the government.

For instance, currently there are parliamentary hearings on the crash of an Israeli airplane in Amsterdam. This serves to cover up what is behind the crash. But because the hearings are televised—this has been going on for two months — people see the cover-up on the one hand and the arrogance of the leading politicians and bureaucrats on the other. They see the indifference to the worries and cares of the masses of common people. Thus it is necessary for these politicians and government figures to try to develop a campaign in order to restore confidence in the government. At the same time, every day, on television, on radio, from the people we talk with, we hear that confidence in the officialdom of the Netherlands has completely disappeared.

As I already said, in most of these independently organized strikes—and most strikes are organized independently—and in several of the strikes where we did work, we were able to organize these and lead many of them. We became aware how our organization works to date and tries to develop itself. This is not in accord with the tasks lying ahead of us. This year there are also big mass movements of teachers, and in the health sector; there are major union contract negotiations and activities by a group of metal workers. Our comrades noticed that we currently have more obligations than we are able to fulfill.

At union meetings, the union members come to our comrades and ask them, ‘what action should we take, should we go further, what should we do?’. At our general meeting held last year, we talked about the development of our work in the Netherlands. We came to the conclusion that it is not enough to have a political program and organize activities and to expect then that people will organize themselves and that our influence and membership will constantly grow. But it is necessary to apply this program consciously. It is necessary to build up our organization, to plan this growth in a conscious way, to set ourselves goals that have to be achieved; and to change ourselves, go from a method of reacting to developments as best we can to a different method of work, and to look ahead to recognize such developments; and to organize ourselves as well as possible and pose our tasks in such a way that they can be properly handled. For this purpose we have initiated various changes, but we can talk about that later. But we think that with the experience we have gained to now, and considering how the struggle of the people of the Netherlands is going, that in the next few years we can take the necessary step from a group to an organization for party-building which lays the foundations for founding a genuine revolutionary party in the Netherlands.