WP 68 - From Policy to Practice: Assessing sectoral flexicurity in the Netherlands

The combination of flexibility and security (i.e. flexcicurity) in labour markets has become a pivotal feature of the European Commission’s view on the reform of labour markets across Europe. In this view, the Netherlands is seen as an ‘example of flexicurity’, mainly because of its adoption of the 1999 Law on Flexibility and Security. Because this law allows for deviation within collective agreements, we argue that this is the most appropriate unit of analysis when analysing flexicurity outcomes. We focus on three aspects of the F&S Law: notice periods, trial periods, and the use of fixed-term contracts. We analyse collective agreements at sector-level and find that the flexicurity-balance in these three aspects tilts towards the flexibility side. As a next explorative step we use some sector-characteristics to explain the flexicurity balance within sectors: business cycle sensitivity, openness to competition, scarcity of labour, and union strength. These four factors show a more diffused impact on the flexicurity balance than we hypothesize.

Degradation of Toluene and Trichloroethylene by Burkholderia cepacia G4 in Growth-Limited Fed-Batch Culture

Burkholderia (Pseudomonas) cepacia G4 was cultivated in a fed-batch bioreactor on either toluene or toluene plus trichloroethylene (TCE). The culture was allowed to reach a constant cell density under conditions in which the amount of toluene supplied equals the maintenance energy demand of the culture. Compared with toluene only, the presence of TCE at a toluene/TCE ratio of 2.3 caused a fourfold increase in the specific maintenance requirement for toluene from 22 to 94 nmol mg of cells (dry weight)-1 h-1. During a period of 3 weeks, approximately 65% of the incoming TCE was stably converted to unidentified products from which all three chlorine atoms were liberated. When toluene was subsequently omitted from the culture feed while TCE addition continued, mutants which were no longer able to grow on toluene or to degrade TCE appeared. These mutants were also unable to grow on phenol or m- or o-cresol but were still able to grow on catechol and benzoate. Plasmid analysis showed that the mutants had lost the plasmid involved in toluene monooxygenase formation (pTOM). Thus, although strain G4 is much less sensitive to TCE toxicity than methanotrophs, deleterious effects may still occur, namely, an increased maintenance energy demand in the presence of toluene and plasmid loss when no toluene is added.

WP 54 - Temporary agency work in the Netherlands

This paper is the result of a study on temp agency workers and on the role that temp agency work played in company’s staffing strategies and on industry and national regulations regarding temp agencies and temp agency work. It was conducted in2004-2006, as part of a larger project on low wage work in the Netherlands, which was part of a five country study for the Russell Sage Foundation, USA. In order to provide a background for understanding temporary agency work, recent developments in and the various forms of external numerical flexibility in the Netherlands are sketched first. The temporary agency market apparently is well equipped to provide services for firms’ demands for flexible labor. The largest volume of temp work through agencies includes rather low-skilled jobs for manufacturing, transport, cleaning and administrative work, although most large temp work agencies also maintain specialized departments for outsourcing nurses, secretaries, managers, and other professional medical or technical staff. If one relates the 2004 figures to the Dutch dependent workforce at large, temp agency workers made up 6.0 percent (head-count) of that workforce, and 4.5 percent in FTEs. In firms using temp agency workers, on average 7 percent of the workforce recently was made up of temp agency workers. Major motives for companies to hire temp agency workers are peaks in production, mostly predictable peaks, as well as replacement of staff falling ill. As for the regulatory regime, in the late 1990s, two species of legislation were introduced that are of relevance here. The Flexibility and Security (‘Flexicurity’) Act of 1999, replacing the 1965 law, is most important for the regulation of employment relationships in and by temp work agencies. The 1998 WAADI Act regulates the temp agency product market, and abolished the former license system, although the government kept the option open to reinstate such a system ‘in the interest of good relations on the labour market or the interests of the personell concerned’. For temp work agencies the main implication of the new law was that agreements between them and employees were to be employment contracts. As temp work agencies are assumed to bear employer responsibility, this may lead to larger security for temp agency workers. Temp agency workers are for the larger part covered by a collective agreement, concluded by General Federation Temporary Work Agencies - ABU with the major trade unions. After mandatory extension, about 94 percent of the temp agency workers were covered by an agreement. For typologies of temp agency workers on employment status and education we have analysed the 2004 data of the WageIndicator, collected via a web-based survey addressing the labor force in the Netherlands. The analyses show that 1.7 percent of the observations concerned a temp agency worker. Of this group, one out of ten indicated to be a school pupil or student. Another five percent was a housewife/man with a job on the side, partly disabled, unemployed, or working without loss of unemployment benefits. Temp agency work is often associated with people with a weak position in the labour market, but it appeared that temp agency workers did not significantly differ from other workers with regard to their years of education, although they more often had enjoyed general education instead of vocational education. Temp agency workers are typically young workers, as they proved to be relatively younger than the workforce of any other large branch of industry. Compared with their share in the total Dutch workforce, migrant workers, from western or from non-western origin, are comparatively more often employed via temp work agencies.

Prevalence of psychoactive substances in Dutch and Belgian traffic

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of psychoactive substances in general traffic in The Netherlands and Belgium. Method: Randomly selected car drivers and drivers of small vans in six police regions in The Netherlands and five police regions in Belgium were included between January 2007 and August 2009. Blood and oral fluid samples were analyzed for 23 substances, including ethanol (alcohol), by means of ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry or gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis. Samples were weighted according to the distribution of traffic over eight 6-hour periods. Substance groups were categorized in five mutually exclusive classes: single alcohol use, single illicit drug use, single medicinal drugs use, multiple drug use (including drugs from two or more separate substance groups but excluding alcohol), and drug use (either single or multiple) in combination with alcohol. Results: In total, 7,771 drivers (4,822 in The Netherlands and 2,949 in Belgium) were included in the study. In Belgium, the prevalence of single alcohol (6.4%) and single medicinal drugs (3.0%) was much higher than in The Netherlands (2.2% and 0.6%, respectively), whereas the single illicit drugs were more common in Dutch traffic (2.2%) than in Belgian traffic (0.6%). Compared with the estimated prevalence of psychoactive substances in the general driving public in Europe, the prevalence in Belgium (10.7%) was greater than the European average (7.4%), and the prevalence in The Netherlands was below the European average (5.5%). Conclusions: The observed prevalence of psychoactive substances varies largely between The Netherlands and Belgium. Probable reasons for the differences are the higher level of alcohol enforcement in The Netherlands and nonresponse bias in the Belgian study (for illicit drugs in particular). Furthermore, cultural differences and variances in prescription policy could also be influential