Dynamics in Dutch collective bargaining - practice and challenges: Peer Review “Towards a more dynamic collective bargaining”, Portugal, 23-24 October 2017

Having the so-called ‘Polder’ model, the Netherlands has a long and fruitful history of social dialogue at both the national, sectoral and company level, with relatively harmonious relationship between the social partners and the government for the past 35 years (de Beer and Keune, 2017). The government has not intervened directly in the collective bargaining process since 1982. In that year, the social partners in the Dutch Labor Foundation (Stichting van de Arbeid) concluded an agreement (Het akkoord van Wassenaar) on moderate wage development linked to the reallocation of work in order to decrease unemployment and to improve the competitiveness of the Netherlands (CBS, 2007). Wages have been growing quite moderately ever since. This long history is important in order to explain and understand the 'DNA' of Dutch social partnership.