1

Organizing a transnational hyper-mobile workforce in the Dutch construction sector1

By

Lisa Berntsen

email: l.e.berntsen@rug.nl

Nathan Lillie

email: n.a.lillie@rug.nl

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

Department of Global Economics and Management

for presentation at

Transnational Industrial Relations and the Search for Alternatives

31 May – 1 June 2012

University of Greenwich, UK

Abstract

The establishment of free movement of labour and services has facilitated an increase in

short-term cross-border labour mobility within the European market. This has driven the

growth of a transnational hyper-mobile labour force, particularly in the construction industry.

Organizing these workers is challenging for unions, as few native union members remain to

serve as an organizing base. In fact, on large construction sites, where the majority consists of

migrant workers, this membership base may be completely lacking. Dutch unions, and in

particular, the FNV, have developed strategies based on US model organizing, and applied

these strategies to successfully organize migrant workers in the cleaning sector. We will make

the case that although the cleaning sector experience does provide lessons for organizing

posted workers in construction, construction is fundamentally more challenging to organize

due to the pan-European nature of the labour market. While the union has adopted a very

proactive approach, combining rank-and-file organizing and legal servicing, success remains

elusive. The paper is based on interviews with union officials and migrant workers as well as

observations of and participation in union organizing tactics.

1 This research was funded by European Research Council Starting Grant #263782, “Transnational

Work and the Evolution of Sovereignty.” We gratefully acknowledge the interviewing assistance and

methodological advice of Erka Çaro, Ines Wagner, and Alex Veen in conducting the field work.

Thanks is due to our interpreters, Urszula Zelazek, Filipe Jesus de Montes, Piotr Zakrzewski, Murat

Shahinturk and Anna Rajtar, and to Nuon, the FNV and our interviewees, for their cooperation and

facilitation of the research process.

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Introduction

In recent years, the number of construction workers ‘posted’ abroad in the European Union

(EU) has risen, driven by the accession of Eastern European countries and changes in

regulation of intra-EU mobility. National labour markets are breaking into tiers, with

transnational migrants, employed through subcontractors, making up the lower tier. More than

any other industry, construction has been affected by this trend, with trade unions struggling

to maintain their influence over a labour market increasingly dominated by low-paid, non-

union, temporary workers, brought in by transnational work agencies and subcontractors.

While many trade unions, including the Dutch unions, have successfully applied the

“organizing model” to the organization of immigrant and low-paid labour, in construction it is

more difficult to generate a self-sustaining shop-floor organization, and the union has had to

maintain an on-going servicing role. We argue two main points 1) the difficulties encountered

organizing the posted workforce at Eemshaven construction sites in northern Netherlands are

symptomatic of the mismatch between the national scale of the construction labour unions,

and the pan-European scale of the labour market, and 2) in the circumstances encountered on

an international site such as the one in the Eemshaven, an ongoing servicing role for the union

helped to support the “organizing model,” by establishing trust relations with the workforce.

The Dutch building sector unions are well resourced and characterised by a strong social

partnership tradition and primarily servicing model. However, the Dutch FNV trade unions in

Eemshaven (Bouw and Bondgenoten) have, as far as possible, applied what are considered to

be state-of-the-art “organizing model” tactics for organizing and representing migrant

workers. These organizing tactics were adapted from those of the US unions, most notably the

SEIU, and were successfully tested by FNV Bondgenoten in a campaign to organize the

mostly immigrant cleaners at Schiphol airport, public railways and banks. In construction,

FNV Bouw and FNV Bondgenoten have put considerable resources into a bottom-up

organizing campaign, supplemented by an investment in on-site migrant servicing, to reach

migrant construction and metalworkers employed in the Eemshaven. They have also

attempted to exert influence directly through main contractors and through the media.

Legal uncertainty and the partial legal immunity from local labour standards provided by the

EU regulatory framework has been found to inhibit trade union representation of posted

workers in other cases (Lillie and Sippola 2011). The legal situation, per se is only part of the

problem in the Eemshaven; the main barrier to the successful application of the immigrant

“organizing model” has been the temporary and mobile nature of posted workforce, which

prevents workers from taking the personal risks involved in being or becoming a trade union

activist. Since the “organizing model” (Conrow 1991) depends on identifying and

empowering worker-activists to take a central role in their own representation, the hyper-

mobility of the posted workforce seriously undermines prospects for achieving stable bottom-

up migrant unionism in the European construction industry.

Organizing Migrants

Willingness to represent them, however, is only one aspect of union relations to immigrants.

‘Like recruits like’ is a basic principle of the organizing model (Heery et al. 2000). Inclusion

of migrants in activist and leadership positions is a further and more difficult step but one

which is seen as important to successful recruitment and representation (Holgate, 2005;

Milkman, 2006). Migrant organizing therefore requires difficult organizational adaptations,

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although in the case of the FNV the political battle to make this possible seems largely to

have occurred before the Eemshaven case became prominent. Still, tensions remain, as can

be seen from the constant need to justify migrant organizing and servicing expenditures in

terms of the interests of current members.

In the last two decades, “union organizing research” has become an established literature

within international and comparative industrial relations. Together with the union organizing

tactics this research agenda investigates and promotes, it has expanded from its 1980s origins

in the peculiarities of the US union-election system across the Atlantic to the UK (Heery et al.

2000), across the Pacific to China (Mingwei, 2010), and across the English channel to the

Netherlands (Mundlak 2006), Germany (Turner 2009), and Poland (Mrozowicki, Pulignano,

and van Hootgem 2010). It is closely associated with idea of labour movement revitalization

through staff-initiated rank and file involvement, strategic unionism, corporate campaigning,

social movement linkages and similar (Frege and Kelly et al 2004; Brinkmann et al. 2008).

Two aspects of this debate concern us here: first, the application of the organizing model to

the Dutch context, and secondly, the special problem of organizing a transnationally hyper-

mobile workforce.

The principle tactics of the “organizing model” were developed and tested in the United

States in the 1980s and 1990s, and came to be a dominant paradigm with the ascendency of

John Sweeney to presidency of the AFL-CIO in 1995. It was a reaction to more passive

organizing paradigms, which simply involved leafleting at the factory gates, or organizing in

“hotshops” where discontented workers clearly demanded elections. Key aspects of the

strategy included identifying worker-activists within target firms to build organizing

committees, relying on the workers for most of the organizing work, meeting with workers

away from the workplace, keeping the organizing secret as long as possible in order to avoid

management reprisals, emphasizing dignity and rights over bread and butter issues, and

seeking supermajorities in elections to counter the usual fall-off in support due to

management counter strategies late in the campaigns. Bronfenbrenner found, using AFL-

CIO about tactics and wins/loses in NLRB elections, that this bundle of rank-and-file oriented

tactics resulted in higher union win-rates than more passive traditional tactics

(Bronfenbrenner 1997). The NLRB election union system is unique to the North American

context (Canada has a similar system, but with election rules more favorable to the union),

however. Unions must collect sufficient signatures from workers showing that there is an

interest in union representation, and show these to the NLRB to schedule a vote. If more than

50% of the workers in the bargaining unit vote for union representation, then the employer

has a legal obligation to bargain with the new union. Presumably, then, a union organization

will form in the workplace and a collective bargaining agreement will be signed, although this

is not always the case, as many employers continue to oppose union representation even after

the election (Bronfenbrenner 2001). The structure of labor law incentives employers to

oppose unionization strongly, since it will likely raise labor costs. It also gives them

opportunities to do this, by allowing a period between the time management is aware there is

a union drive (after cards have been submitted) and the actual election: this gives management

a chance to launch an anti-union campaign of its own (Bronfenbrenner 1997; 2001).

This organizing model is counterposed with “servicing models” in a normative sense. In

order to “revitalize” stagnant organizations, unions need a ‘bottom-up’ or ‘social movement’

approach (Johnston 1994; Turner and Hurd 2001). Doing this, however, requires trade-offs in

terms staff orientations and union resources, implying substantial changes union structures,

personnel, and identity. The same staff well suited to servicing existing members are not

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always the same types of people needed to persuade workers to risk their jobs, or to organize

street protests (Voss and Shermann 2000; de Tuberville 2004). Organizing is costly, both in

terms of union finances, as well as in terms of activists’ time and energy. However, our

evidence here suggests that servicing may be the only practical way to gain the cooperation of

highly mobile workers in maintaining labour standards, because in the context of

hypermobility there is no time to generate self-sustaining member-driven structures.

The organizing concept is inevitably context dependent: what union membership means,

when and how it can be obtained, and how unions go about representing workers are all

different from place to place. The original organizing model is clearly the product of the US

environment: low union density, few and weak legal protections, hostile employers,

workplace level bargaining, and legal channels for unionization focused around workplace

elections. Heery and Adler, in a five country study on organizing patterns, connect the

adoption of the organizing model with national institutions: in some contexts, focused

workplace campaigns to activate rank and file workers to obtain a collective agreement

simply makes no sense (Heery and Adler 2004). In the Netherlands, in common with

Germany and many other European countries workers already have a collective agreement via

legal extension, and can join the union whenever they like. Workplace campaigns might focus

on other issues (Mundlak 2007), or seek to establish workplace structures such as works

councils, as happened in the Schlecker campaign in Germany (Bormann 2008: 45-50). What

organizing actually means, what the goals are and which tactics are used depends very much

on institutional context, but the core idea of strategic, staff-driven engagement with rank and

file workers, with the goal of building power through increased activism, remains central as

both a methodology and ideology.

The organizing model is by definition about union-building among unorganized workers, and

therefore focuses in part – although not by any means exclusively – on more repressed and

marginalized groups. Organizing among immigrants and minorities therefore features strongly

in the literature (Holgate 2005; Milkman 2000; 2006) Although trade unions have a history of

contentious and contradictory relations with immigrant communities (Virdee 2000), based on

contradictory imperatives to exclude from the labour market and to organize and represent

them (Penninx and Roosblad 2000), it is now accepted that immigrants are often quite eager

to join unions, although unions must sometimes adapt their strategies and structures to be

attractive for them (Milkman et al. 2000; Milkman 2006).

Posted workers, and similarly employed hyper-mobile migrant workers on contemporary

European construction sites, are another story. These face uniquely difficult organizing

conditions, including linguistic, physical and social isolation, a full range of employer

reprisals, insecurity and dependence in a foreign environment, and limited access to labour

rights in a de jure sense and even greater limitations in a de facto sense. Unions have not had

much success in organizing them, even in contexts where union organization is very strong,

such as in Denmark and Finland, where unions rely on secondary industrial action to defend

their legally extended collective agreements (Eldring et al. 2012; Lillie and Sippola 2011;

Lillie 2012). Innovative projects to provide specialized servicing structures such as the

German European Migrant Works Union, and thereby attract them into membership have

failed (Greer, Ciupijius and Lillie 2013). More successful have been Norwegian efforts,

which engage and mobilize posted workers in ways similar to those suggested by the

organizing model; these, however, are in perpetual tension with the ephemeral nature of the

construction industry which tends to erode organizing gains quickly (Eldring et al. 2013).

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Method

This article presents a case study of two construction sites in Eemshaven. The case is based

primarily on (participant) observation of FNV organizing tactics and on interview data, from

interviews and group discussions with workers and trade union officials, supplemented by

media and government reports. Case studies are the best method for researching power

relations and complex social interactions, particularly where these are in flux (Kitay and

Callus, 1998) and new theory is needed (Eisenhardt, 1989). This is the situation in

construction, where national institutions are being undermined and the line between legal and

illegal or formal and informal employment is blurred. Official data sources and statistics are

unreliable or unavailable and in any case do not address the key question of this study: why

do trade unions have such difficulty in representing posted migrant workers?

We focus on the construction industry. This is not the only industry with a pan-European

labour market, but in construction the transnational labour supply system is at its most

developed. Because of the way construction is organized, project sites are where the dynamics

affecting posted workers – relations between main and sub-contractors, workers, lay

representatives and unions – come together. The Eemshaven makes a suitable research

context because the Dutch unions are applying what is considered to be state of the art

immigrant organizing tactics. Workers in the Eemshaven construction sites mostly fall under

the jurisdiction of the FNV Bouw or FNV Bondgenoten (for metalworking trades). The Dutch

FNV unions recognize the issues at stake and have developed sophisticated organizing and

servicing strategies to address them.

In 2011 and 2012, interviews were conducted with over 100 workers of different nationalities

(Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Slovakian and Irish) staying at temporary

housing near the construction sites, with 5 union officials and activists in the local Groningen

region and at the national office, with a representative of the construction employers

association from the regional office, with a works councillor from a subcontractor firm, with a

manager of a contractor firm and of an agency firm, and with management from the Nuon site

(RWE declined requests for interviews). Interviews with unionists, employers’

representatives, the works councillor and management were conducted as “expert” (or “elite

(Dexter 1970)) interviews, while interviews with workers were conducted as “ethnographic”

interviews. Expert interviews are interviews in which informants, who usually have formative

and interpretative power about their industries and topics, “teach” the interviewer about the

topic under discussion (Littig, 2009). Ethnographic interviews seek to find the meaning in the

everyday activities of the interviewee, by asking them to describe their situation. The

distinction between the two types of interviews is not absolute, as both types of information

can be gleaned from either type of interview, but in general the interviews are clearly different

in character, falling into one of the two categories. The interviews were conducted in various

languages, and interpreters were used when necessary (which was often the case for worker

interviews). Many interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees; others

were conducted with the interviewer taking notes. The various trade union activities that we

participated in and/or observed were captured in extensive field notes that were written

shortly after joining the activities. The interviews were stored and coded using MaxQDA

qualitative data analysis software. All interviews are anonymized in order to protect the

informants.

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The Eemshaven case study took place in the context of the larger project, Transnational Work

and the Evolution of Sovereignty (ERC Staring Grant #263782), which looks at posted work

in a variety of contexts around Europe.

Dutch union framework and bargaining context

The Netherlands is considered a corporatist model of industrial relations and in general,

employers and employees in the Dutch construction sector show a high organisational degree

with good social relations and constructive dialogue (EFBWW, 2009). The Netherlands has a

strong tradition of social partnership, with high degrees of consensus, cooperation and

coordination between state, capital and labour (Marino, 2012). Collective labour agreements

are generally concluded at the sectoral level and legally extended. Dutch trade unions play an

important role in the national socio-economic decision-making process, even though union

membership rates have never been high. In the 1950s membership rates reached their peak

with 40 per cent membership coverage, but this rate has been falling since to 23 per cent in

2003. Trade unions in the Netherlands have a strong institutional position. Union federations

often cooperate closely in consultative bodies, such as the Social Economic Council (SER) or

the Joint Industrial Labour Council (Stichting van de Arbeid, STAR). The SER is the official

advisory council of the government for the socio-economic domain, in which both trade union

and employers association representatives as experts appointed by government take seat. The

government is required by law to ask advice of the SER about socio-economic policy

measures. In the STAR employers organisations and trade unions develop agreements about

socio-economic policies that may advise the government as well (Roosblad, 2000). The strong

institutional position of Dutch trade unions is not dependent on their capacity to mobilise

workers. Since unions do not need a certain membership rate to become recognized as a

bargaining agent, incentives for organising are relatively weak in the Netherlands

(Kloosterboer, 2007; Marino and Roosblad, 2008).

In the construction sector, trade union density is relatively high with 37 per cent (in 2004, Van

Cruchten en Kuijpers, 2007) compared to average 23 per cent of overall trade union density in

the Netherlands (Grunell, 2008). This high rate is a consequence of a system that ended in

2000, where unions had a representative at the local level involved in the execution of social

security programs. This representative maintained intensive contact between union and

employees and thus allowed for more continuous membership recruitment (Van der Meer,

2003). The main union confederations in the Netherlands are the social democratic Dutch

Federation of Trade Unions (FNV, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging) with almost 1.4

million members and the Christian Union Federation (CNV, Christelijk Nationaal

Vakverbond) with more than 335.000 members. CNV Vakmensen is the biggest union of the

CNV (135.000 members) and represents amongst others construction workers. FNV Bouw

(almost 124.000 members) represents construction workers and FNV Bondgenoten (476.000

members) amongst others metalworkers. Workers’ representation in the Netherlands is

traditionally the strongest at sectoral level (through collective labour agreements and other

forms of self-regulation) and relatively weak at the company level. This is related to the

Dutch trade union tradition that shows a stronger focus on collective labour agreements than

on representation on the shop floor (Sol, 2009; Sol and Houwerzijl, 2009). Representation and

employee participation at company levels is arranged through works councils. Firms with

more than 35 employees are required to have a works council. The main employers’

association in construction is Bouwend Nederland (5000 members).

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Social partners in construction, FNV Bouw and CNV Hout and Bouw and Bouwend

Nederland, have established an independent compliance office Technic Bureau for the

Construction industry (Technisch Bureau Bouwnijverheid, TBB), responsible for checking

compliance with Dutch collective labour agreements. The agency branch has a similar self-

regulatory body, the SNCU (Stichting Naleving CAO Uitzendkrachten, Foundation

compliance CLA for temporary agency workers).

The Dutch construction industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises. The

national market remained insular until the 1990s (Van der Meer, 2003; Houwerzijl, 2004).

This may have been because of the national minimum wage, and because of Dutch tendering

practises. Developers often only invited a limited number of firms to put in a bid for pre-

qualification, and Dutch language of communication was often a requirement. This restricted

access of foreign companies to the Dutch construction market (Houwerzijl, 2004).

Nevertheless, with increased European integration, construction sites in the Netherlands have

opened up to foreign labour. In 2004 and 2005, construction experienced a ‘flexibility boom’,

where the number of self-employed, temporary and foreign workers, and foreign

subcontractors rose significantly (Bosse and Houwerzijl, 2006). The Netherlands opted for a

transition period of restrictions on labour mobility for citizens of new EU member states,

which ended in 2007 (2014 for Bulgaria and Rumania).

The inflow of foreign labour challenged Dutch trade union representation, which traditionally

has been characterized by a strong servicing model. Initiatives that were developed towards

migrant workers often had a top-down character as they were developed at the confederal

level (Connolly et al., 2011). In 2005, the FNV published a desk study that argued for a need

to redefine themselves, which was inspired by innovative trade union strategies from abroad.

Issues that were deemed important for the FNV were organising of new groups of people,

such as young workers, non-standard workers, but also ethnic minorities and immigrant

workers (Connolly et al., 2011). Especially the affiliate union FNV Bondgenoten became

prominently engaged with the organising approach adopted by the SEIU in the United States.

SEIU officials that had been involved in successful organising campaigns trained Dutch

unionists in organising tactics (Mundlak, 2007). Organising, however, is a change from the

traditional cooperative and non-confrontational strategies that have characterised the Dutch

union movement for a long time (Connolly et al., 2011).

Organizing in the Netherlands: the ‘Schoon Genoeg’ (‘Clean enough’) campaign

The ‘clean enough’ campaign was launched in 2007 and is considered a unique campaign for

the Netherlands, since it is a breach with the traditional social partnership union model.

Though the cleaners campaigned for an increase in pay, the campaign was phrased primarily

about respectful treatment of cleaning staff. The campaign combined grass roots organizing,

direct action and broad coalition forming to pressure employers and their contractors. It was

modelled after the SEIU’s successful ‘Justice for Janitors’ campaign and SEIU activists

helped to train FNV staff around organizing. The ‘Justice for Cleaners’ campaign in the UK

also provided the FNV with tactics and strategies such as workplace mapping, targeting and

‘shaming’ client companies of cleaning contractors (Connolly et al., 2011). Transnational

learning was thus an important aspect in the setting up of the cleaners campaign in the

Netherlands.

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Specially trained FNV organizers started mobilising employees in the cleaning sector from

2007 onwards. This was done by visits to the worksite and the homes of workers. At the

worksite organizers had to tread careful not to raise suspicion of supervisors. The union

encouraged self-organization and the formation of leaders at the workplace level. Leaders at

the workplace were also mobilised further by involving them in the campaign and training

them at the union offices. This mobilised a large movement. The high levels of resources that

were allocated to building up self-organization amongst cleaners combined with a strong

commitment of union organizers are considered key to the success of the cleaners campaign

(Connolly et al., 2011).

In 2008 the campaign reached its first success, when an agreement was concluded on higher

wages, vocational training, language courses and more transparent collective agreement

(Connolly et al., 2011). Still the cleaners campaign nowadays is primarily associated with two

successful prolonged strike actions, one of nine weeks in 2010 and the 2012 strike that lasted

fifteen weeks. This has been the longest strike action in the Netherlands since 1933. The

campaign addressed the competitive market mechanism in the sector and held client firms

responsible for the fierce tendering processes that were fought over the heads of the

employees. Instead of targeting the contracting companies, the campaign targeted client firms.

Client companies that were targeted were NS-Nedtrain (public railways), Schiphol airport and

banks.

From our perspective, the interesting aspect of the campaign is the way the FNV successfully

mobilized a large group of cleaners of different nationalities. These workers often did not

have strong Dutch skills, and did not always share a language with each other. Like the posted

workers, they were also working under temporary contracts. In the beginning, they did not

have a natural collective at the workspace. Nonetheless, they enthusiastically fought together

to improve their position at the bottom of the labour market (Heuts, 2011). Both of the

cleaners’ strike actions resulted in improved working conditions. The 2010 campaign received

an international “best union campaign” award from the services sector Global Union

Federation, UNI. Connolly et al. (2011) argue that the campaign was such a success because it

engaged with the workforce in novel ways. The cleaners campaign did increase FNV

Bondgenoten membership, but this turned out to be a onetime increase only. So far, it has

been the only successful organizing drive in the Netherlands.

Despite obvious parallels with the cleaners’ campaign, the application of the same tactics to

the posted worker situation has met with little success. We argue that this is a structural

problem related to the hypermobility of the workforce. The situation of the cleaners has some

similarities to that of the construction workers: they are also recent arrivals in the

Netherlands, on temporary contracts, and usually working for subcontractors rather than client

firms directly. However, unlike the posted workers, the cleaners expect to stay and therefore it

was possible for the FNV to help them build their own workplace union structure. For the

posted workers, the scale of their labour market (pan-EU) is too large to make investment in

building a Dutch-based union structure, it is not worth the effort and risk it would involve.

A hyper-mobile transnational workforce in the Eemshaven

The Eemshaven is an industrial harbour area in the north of the Netherlands. The former

Dutch energy firm Nuon, now owned by Swedish Vattenfall, is building a gas fuelled energy

plant. Construction began in 2008, but was delayed for over a year because of permit issues.

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Construction resumed at the end of 2009 and the plan is that the energy central will be in

operation at the end of 2012. Next to the Nuon site, the German RWE is constructing a coal

and biomass fired energy plant. The RWE plans to finish construction in 2013. The area was

recently coined the energy port of the Netherlands, because of the large investments in energy

made here. RWE invested around 2.6 billion, the Nuon circa 1.8 billion.

Nuon has contracted the construction of their energy plant out on a turnkey basis to the

Japanese Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi has chosen four contractors for the construction of the actual

plant. Ballast Nedam, an internationally operating Dutch construction firm and one of the

main players on the Dutch construction market, is responsible for the civil works. For the

mechanical installation Mitsubishi chose the established consortium FIP, consisting of

Dutch/Belgian Fabricom, Italian Irem and French Ponticelli. This consortium recruits their

labour mainly via agency firms. The FIP consortium employs several nationalities, but the

main groups originate from Portugal, Poland, Italy and France. Two other contractors of

Mitsubishi are ABB who is responsible for electric and NEM for the kettle works. These

firms form the top of the contracting chain, but under them a variety of subcontractor and

agency firms are active. In February 2012 around 2400 men were working on the construction

site. The official language of communication on the Nuon site is English, meaning that for

foremen and managers, English language ability is required. Workers at the lowest level of

the job hierarchy do not need to know English, and usually don’t.

The RWE uses its own engineering team to construct its power plant. They have 70 direct

contractors and these contracting parties themselves hire subcontractors or agencies to

perform the works. The RWE energy plant will be run on two kettles that are 110 metres high,

higher than the Martinitower in Groningen. The main language of communication on the

RWE site is German. Main nationalities on the site seem to be German, Polish and

Portuguese. The estimated of number of workers at the peak of the building process is around

3000 workers.

The labour power that is used to construct both energy centrals is accommodated in the

Groninger province, the region that surrounds the Eemshaven. Groningen is one of the

smaller provinces of the Netherlands and one of the least densely populated. Groningen is the

only city in the province with around 180.000 inhabitants. The people that work on the

construction of the energy plants need to be accommodated in the region, because the

majority originate from abroad. Even Dutch workers that are working there usually live close

to the work site during the week, because it is located too far from their homes. There are

some larger accommodation facilities, where workers are housed in containers. The Nuon has

workers hired by consortium FIP housed in a container park that can accommodate up to 1200

workers. Other than that, hotels, holiday parks, group accommodations, or unused houses are

put to use to accommodate the workers of the Eemshaven. Labour turnover rates are high on

both construction sites, and the composition of the people living at particular accommodates

changes quickly. A former school building for example in one of the towns in the province

Groningen has been the home of Portuguese, Turkish and Polish workers for distinct periods

of time. This keeps changing in line with the construction process that requires certain kinds

of workers for particular parts of the construction.

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Changing union strategy

For the FNV, the Eemshaven represents a unique challenge. The workforce does not belong to

any Dutch unions,. Although there have been other sites in The Netherlands where posted

migrant construction workers have worked, none have been comparable to the Eemshaven, in

terms of the scale of the project, its relative isolation from the Dutch population centers, and

the fact that the major contractors were all foreign-owned operations. This means that

Eemshaven is a pilot project for the FNV, as there is no playbook available on how to

approach such sites. The strategies they have chosen are taken from their past experiences:

bottom up organizing similar to that attempted in the cleaners’ strike, and maintaining a

constant, visible union presence on the site, providing labour rights information, arbitration,

and legal representation in order to demonstrate to the workers their effectiveness in

protecting their rights.

Earlier FNV Bouw, FNV Bondgenoten and two FNV affiliated unions representing self-

employed workers established a project called FNVopdebouwplaats (FNV at the construction

site). This projects strategy was to establish a central contact point on the site for all workers

employed there. The FNVopdebouwplaats campaign’s intention was to re-establish a trade

union presence at the actual places where people work in construction. By doing this, they

could enhance the unions’ accessibility and visibility. It also provided a basis for union

coordination because in construction projects, workers increasingly fall under the jurisdiction

of unions other than the FNV Bouw. The Eemshaven, nevertheless, required an even more

specific approach because of the limited amount of Dutch workers there and the limited initial

access to the site and workers.

Recruitment: the problem of hypermobile workers

As has been observed in other countries around Europe, posted workers are usually only

inclined to join the local union when they have a serious problem with their employer,

ensuring that representing them will be expensive; workers who do not have such problems

do not join or pay dues (Lillie and Greer 2007; Lillie and Sippola 2011; Wagner and Lillie

2012; Greer, Ciupijus and Lillie 2013). This is also a dilemma which confronts the FNV at

Eemshaven; several unionists told us that the few posted workers that become members’

usually require (legal) assistance. Although formally, workers only have a right to receive

legal services after they have been paying members for one year, in fact the FNV has been

willing to overlook this requirement at Eemshaven, when it seemed strategically important to

do so. The decision to actively represent these workers is not uncontested however:

So basically most of … well 70% of my colleagues say ‘This guy is not a member

of us, so we won’t help him’. These Poles are not our business. All we have to do

is make sure that they don’t earn … they’re not supposed to be cheaper than the

Dutch guy that is a member because we don’t want them to push our people out of

the market. That is our interest, our main interest as a union. And there’s a few

people, like (…) they say you know, we have to do something for these people too

because they will be our new crowd. That’s the ones that we’re supposed to

represent. And you know, it’s a dilemma, we’re right in the middle of it.

FNV official 1

11

So far the FNV has remained committed to servicing the posted workers in Eemshaven in

hope of attracting them as members, and in order to prevent undermining of local wage

standards. However, it is also clear this represents a drain on the union resources, as the

posted workers do not contribute resources.

The Effect of the EU Regulatory Framework

The European Union has, as a matter of policy, promoted free movement within Europe, on

the grounds that it increases economic efficiency. This promotion of free movement,

combined with large east-west wage differentials, and an industry structure in construction

which facilitates transnational subcontracting, has resulted in a pan-European labour market.

Construction sites around Europe have turned into international pot-pourris of different

nationalities, with work teams of coming from all over the EU and beyond. These workers

may work under contracts from their home country, from the country where they work, or

even a third country – a Flag of Convenience, chosen by the employer because of its

favourable regulatory environment. Most of these workers are there to work and earn; they

have little contact with the host society, prefer long overtime hours (as long as they are paid

for them, which is not always the case), and are in a position of dependence and vulnerability

vis-à-vis their employers.

This vulnerability is exacerbated by the fact that as part of the promotion of mobility, EU

legislation and jurisprudence constrain the right of member states and trade unions to regulate

mobility and labour conditions, because these can serve to constrain labour mobility by

removing the cost advantage of firms employing low wage workers. The EU politics of labour

mobility in construction have revolved around a series of cases before the European Court of

Justice (ECJ), the 1996 Posted Workers Directive, the 2004 accession of Eastern European

countries to the EU and the 2006 Services Directive. In 1996, the EU passed the Posted

Workers Directive, establishing that posted construction workers are entitled to the statutory

minimum conditions of their host state or sending state, whichever is better from the worker’s

perspective. The directive was seen at the time as establishing a ‘host country’ principle in

employment relations in construction, which has since been reinterpreted by the ECJ in

precisely the opposite direction. In four recent decisions, the court supported the practical

implementation of a ‘country of origin’ principle by asserting that union or government

regulation of labour conditions at foreign service providers constitutes a violation of the free

movement rights set out in the EU's founding document, the 1957 Treaty of Rome (Hyde and

Ressaissi, 2009).

The country of origin principle encourages firms to base themselves in or subcontract

activities to, countries with favourable regulatory regimes while providing services anywhere

they like. There is an assumption of extraterritoriality for capital behind the way ‘freedom of

movement’ is interpreted, enabling firms carry with them home country practices and

regulatory frameworks as they move across national boundaries, unregulated by local

authorities and trade unions. The rest is that, in legal terms at least, intra-EU migration of

individuals and migration as posted workers are regulated under EU law via separate

channels. Those who migrate as individuals are regulated under EU frameworks for labour

mobility, while those who are posted are regulated as dependent employees of service

providers, even though both kinds of workers compete in the same labour and product

markets (Dolvik and Eldring, 2008, p.51-52). Our research suggests that this situation creates

12

a great deal of confusion about workers’ legal rights under labour law, but it is this confusion

more than the actual differences in rights which undermine efforts at representation.

The majority of the foreign workers in the Eemshaven are employed there via agencies and/or

are posted by construction contractors. Finding out the legal employment conditions of these

foreign workers is often very complicated, as is finding out the conditions which should

apply. Of course, many of these workers of the foreign workers in the Eemshaven are not

familiar with Dutch labour regulations and are therefore unacquainted with this set of legal

rights. However, even labour lawyers who are experts in the subject sometimes disagree in

specific cases what law applies, making it very difficult to find out the set of rights to which a

given worker is actually legally entitled. The FNV has found that this confusion is a barrier to

organization and representation. One official told us:

So every time you have to figure out exactly what is the law that applies to this

person. You know, does he have a Dutch contract? Does he have a Polish contract

or a Romanian contract? Is he even under EU law? And that makes it almost

impossible for us to really organise these people.

FNV official 1

The experience of the unions has been that transnational agency workers are particularly

difficult to reach and help (interview FNV official 5). In general principle, if the firm is

established in the Netherlands, the relevant labour law is Dutch. If it is foreign, there will be a

combination of rights referring to the law of the Netherlands, the EU, and the home country

where the sending firm is established (not necessarily where the worker was sent from). Firms

are not always helpful in finding out the applicable rules for their workers, and don’t always

seem to be familiar with them themselves.

Finding a Way In

Among temporary migrant workers, host country unions lack the automatic legitimacy

enjoyed by unions which can tap into political, professional and workplace identity. Unlike

with native workers, with posted workers, the union has to earn their trust and demonstrate

that it is capable of representing them vis-à-vis their employers. Earlier, at other sites, the

FNV tried to recruit temporary foreign workers as members, and failed. FNV officials

attribute this to a lack of trust (interview FNV official 2).

The first tactic to get in touch with the foreign workers at the Eemshaven was leafleting at the

gate. The union printed flyers in various languages informing the workers about minimum

wages and working conditions in the Netherlands. Leafleting is considered a rather passive

organizing tactic, but it was considered necessary to ensure that the posted workers were

informed of their labour rights. Some of the flyers emphasized the systematic differences in

pay between the different nationalities at the sites; these seemed to be quit effective, as

several workers we interviewed mentioned that they had found out about the pay

discrimination via the union leaflet. Still, the leafleting did not get the union the information

and contacts it needed.

In Dutch firms, the union would try to spread information via their membership base on site.

This is something FNV also tried at Eemshaven. They contacted members working for Dutch

firms active in the Eemshaven. However, there were just a few, and these only stayed there

13

for short periods of time and could not help the union much with organising. Some

nevertheless did help gather information about employment contracts:

They [posted workers] obviously heard that I am active in the union (…, and) then

more and more people came to me crying. Also at the worksite. And of course

they [management] were watching me: am I talking with people or not? [As] they

should [continue] work[ing]. So I had to be really careful.

Dutch trade union member

To get more information a team of active union members and union officials went to the

housing and construction sites to conduct a small survey about working conditions. An

organizer followed the buses carrying the workers from between the construction sites and the

housing sites and mapped out their locations. The survey turned out to be an ineffective way

of gathering information. The workers who filled out the forms simply wrote that they earned

minimum wage and not much useful information was obtained this way.

The next step was organizing visits to the housing sites with groups of unionists and

volunteers (usually former kaderleden, or lay representatives). They usually took colleagues

proficient in the languages of the workers with them from other union offices as the

Groningen office at the beginning of their campaign was not staffed with personnel proficient

in the native languages of the major groups working in the Eemshaven. With housing visits

the union hoped to approach the workers in a more comfortable context so that the workers

would be open to talk. Still, they found at the housing sites that the workers were often afraid

to talk to them. There were cases where employers had forbidden workers to talk to the union,

and cases where an accomplice of an employer was living among the workers. Workers also

often showed distrust with their housemates, as these might tell on them. Moreover, it is

possible the workers distrusted unionists as well. Information gathered through these visits

was limited because the workers frequently told the unionists that everything was in order and

that there were no problems with their employment conditions. Trust turned out to be a major

issue in building relationships with these workers.

The need for a more constant presence on site motivated the union to move back to a strategy

more like that the of the FNVOpdebouwplaats campaign, scheduling regular office hours at

one of the larger accommodation sites for workers from the Nuon site and also on the RWE

construction site. With regular office hours, the union was able to better inform workers about

employment conditions and create awareness of their activities because more workers would

see their physical presence.

Well, what I have learned is that we [as union] have grown to be very distant from

the people at their workplace. This is both the case at [FNV] Bondgenoten with

installation technicians and at [FNV] Bouw with the construction workers. And

what we do in the Eemshaven is that we very intensively try to be [present] at the

construction site, by trial and error. Yes, I think that is fairly unique, at least for

us, at this moment.

FNV Official 3

Most of the workers at the bottom of the contracting chain do not speak any but their native

language. The FNV has to employ organizers with the language skills to communicate with

the foreign work force. To this end the union hired two networkers with language skills of the

largest groups of foreign workers in the Eemshaven, namely Polish and Portuguese. A lot

14

depends on these organizers, since they are the ones that need to convince workers to hand in

their pay slips for the union to inspect. Since the unions have so far not had much success in

improving employment conditions on the site (this depends either on the outcome of pending

court cases, or on the eventual success of their attempts at mobilizing workers), they do not

have direct evidence of what can be achieved, making it difficult to convince workers to

cooperate. Some workers see this lack of visible success so far as evidence that the unions are

ineffective:

“There were unions, quite active ones, but it seems that nothing came out of it. I

don’t know what the factors were. Perhaps too few people enrolled to the union.”

[research assistant:] “Aha.”

“They are here quite often, I think every Monday, once a week.”

[research assistant:] “We saw the announcement.”

“Exactly, there is often some info around and so on. They spread flyers, but in

general it doesn’t create any changes for us.”

39-year-old Polish electrician, employed via a Portuguese agency

Besides the language barrier, the other major difficulty in establishing trusting relations with

this workforce is high labour turnover rates. Most foreign workers are employed for short

periods of time, often no longer than three months. The temporary nature of their stay limits

their interest in taking action to change their working conditions.

I haven’t seen the union here. But I would be interested if only I would have a

longer-term contract.

57-year-old Portuguese electrician, employed via a Portuguese agency

Providing information and representation services to workers who only become members

when they have a serious problem, however, is not a sustainable model for trade unionism

(Greer, Ciupijus and Lillie 2013). The FNV has therefore sought to generate active

involvement by the posted workers in their own representation. The aim is also to find key-

workers that can take over much of the organizing effort, so that it will become more of a

bottom-up organized endeavour. The language and hyper-mobility barrier complicate group

organizing. Nevertheless, it is the most effective way to change employment conditions and it

is something the union is also trying.

In general, the workers seem interested in information about their legal rights. Often when

they start, there is a lot of interest, but this diminishes after a while. The importance of

informing the workers about their rights is that the union hopes the workers will take action

when they know that their conditions are not in order. However, most workers do not take this

next step because they are afraid they will lose their jobs. For the union, this is a problem

because they need the proof of non-compliance with Dutch collective labour agreements:

copies of contracts, pay slips and hour registrations. However, many workers express that

they will only do that if they are certain that the union can help them and they themselves will

not suffer repercussion of employers.

[go to] the union? But how would that help me? Only that they will fire me the

next day.

43-year-old Polish scaffolder, employed via a Dutch agency firm

15

In the beginning, it proved impossible to get even a minimal level of cooperation from the

workers, but apparently the unions’ persistence is paying off. The union seems to have made

headway in organizing a group of more than 600 Polish posted workers who are working in

the Eemshaven for more than six months, all for the same company. The fact it is a large

group makes it easier. Often when workers are employed via agency firms, they are only

small groups. They have little leverage and are easily replaced.

And small groups are very vulnerable. I also have the feeling, yes, if you do

something there… my own experience is that we haven’t been able to change a

lot, for the people themselves.

FNV official 5

It is also difficult to mobilise a small group of workers, because there less of a group effect,

where strongly motivated workers are able to convince their colleagues. The union has

therefore concentrated its efforts on informing and mobilise this larger group of workers.

After informing the workers through their on-site office at RWE, the FNV Eemshaven hosted

a meeting at the union offices in Groningen where they presented about Dutch labour rights to

around 100 employees of this firm. During this presentation the union emphasized the need to

take collective action. The workers were told that only through acting as a group, would they

have the power to ensure their employer would respect their rights. Nonetheless, although

many workers seemed on the verge of taking action, they also remained afraid they would

lose their jobs. Several workers asked the union how they could guarantee that they would not

lose their jobs. One worker expressed his concerns that everyone who signed their names on a

petition would get fired. The union had to stress several times that they would not reveal the

names to their employer. Another worker expressed his concerns that there might be snitches

at the meeting.

There are thus lots of hurdles a union has to cross to mobilise these hyper-mobile

transnational construction workers in taking action. With these workers they have seemed to

have crossed one of those hurdles, as they have been able to get them interested and coming

to meetings. However, whether they can continue to overcome their fear to build momentum

and pressure the employers is still an open question.

Relations with the contractors

The FNV Eemshaven has maintained relations with the main contractors on the Eemhaven

construction sites from the very beginning. Despite the use of rank-and-file focused

organizing tactics, the Dutch social partnership tradition is still reflected in their approach.

When issues arise, the union tries to resolve them via dialogue with employers, often

appealing to the social responsibility of the main contractor to insure good working conditions

in the contracting chain. The Eemshaven projects have received substantial bad press in the

Netherlands for their poor labour relations, and the union has used this as leverage. Pressure

tactics, such press coverage and court cases, are used when the dialogue fails to produce

concrete results. For example, FNV Eemshaven and RWE concluded and agreement at the

end of 2011 in which the union agreed that it would bring complaints to the RWE first, before

taking them to the media. They agreed RWE to facilitate negotiations between the union and

the firm being accused of labour violations. The union and the RWE contributed to a fund to

pay for legal fees, so that workers could take negligent employers to court.

16

Taking employers to court, however, does not produce quick results. Although individual

workers may receive money owed them in the end, quick results would be needed to

demonstrate the unions’ effectiveness to the Eemshaven workforce. FNV Eemshaven has

brought several cases to court, but before these cases bring results, the workers will have

moved on to work at other sites.

The largest problems with employment conditions are to be found among transnational

agency workers. These workers are managed by a contractor, but their employment

relationship is with a work agency from another country. Similar to the cleaners’ campaign,

the union focuses on pressuring the client firm, which the union hopes will force the agency

to make changes. However, in one case on the Nuon site, when FNV Eemshaven did this for

workers working for transnational labour suppliers working for a contractor of Mitsubishi, the

workers involved lost their jobs. In the media, the unions’ demonstrated that the work agency

was discriminating on pay according to nationality, and not paying wages in accordance with

Dutch collective labour agreements. A Dutch pipefitter earned 13,13, a Portuguese pipefitter

10,10, and a Polish pipefitter 9,54 euro per hour. After half a year of negotiations with the

union, the contractor decided to stop working with those particular labour suppliers, and to

only work with labour suppliers who abide by Dutch regulations. The union attributes this

success to media pressure, and an appeal to the firms desire to show themselves as socially

responsible. Masja Zwart, one of the union officials involved in the Eemshaven campaign, in

a FNV press release: “It is ridiculous that multinational firms, such as Nuon and main

contractor Mitsubishi, tolerate these abuses. Who pays, determines [the employment

conditions]. These developers accept that Dutch collective labour agreements are undermined.

Is this corporate social responsibility?”2 The action was effective in terms of maintaining

standards, but it did not bring anything to the workers involved that had spoken up about their

situation. Instead, they only lost their jobs because their contractual employer was sent away.

(…) the [client firm] just to get rid of the problem and not to help us, (…)

pretended like nothing was wrong. They did not take responsibility. (…) They

just dumped us.

50-year-old Polish pipefitter, employed via an agency that got send away

The strategy of working directly with contractors close to the top of the contracting chain

seems to have brought some results. A Dutch agency has received requests to supply

labourers to the Eemshaven, because it is able to guarantee that their contracts are in

accordance with Dutch labour standards. A Polish firm contacted the union for advice on how

to set up legally sound posted employment contracts for Polish workers in advance of sending

them to the Eemshaven. Nevertheless, these kinds of successes may not help to build a strong

rank-and-file organization, because they do not involve mobilizing workers directly, nor do

they help to demonstrate the unions’ effectiveness at consolidating gains or protecting

workers who speak up.

Discussion and conclusion

The organizing goals from the Eemshaven campaign are twofold. Most minimally, the union

wants workers to provide information about their own wages and conditions, to be aware of

2 press release (24-02-2012) on the FNV website: http://www.fnv.nl/pers/perskamer/persberichten/120224FNVsignaleertopenlijkediscriminatieopdebouwplaatsEemshaven/

17

whether these are in compliance with Dutch minimum standards and with equal pay

principles. If non-compliant practices are found, the union uses social dialogue style

negotiations, media pressure and judicial proceedings to enforce abidance with Dutch labour

standards. On a more ambitious level, the union wants workers to join the appropriate FNV

union, thus showing their collective support for maintaining wage standards. The first goal

seems achievable, on at least some level – although posted workers are relatively tolerant of

sub-standard employment conditions, when there are serious violations they approach the

union. Motivating them to take a more proactive stance, to build the collective power to

improve pay and conditions above the bare minimum, however, seems unlikely. This is

because of the temporary and insecure nature of their employment.

If workers’ can organize, they collectively reap the rewards, but the costs and risks of

organizing fall mostly on the union activists, a classic collective action problem. The

organizing model deals with this problem by seeking out those workers most likely to be

willing to bear those costs and risks, and most able to inspire their colleagues to do so as well.

However, developing such leadership takes time, which posted workers do not have. Since

their stay is temporary, taking action and organizing themselves is often too risky from their

perspective. Most workers have a well-founded fear of victimization by their employers if

they complain about employment conditions. Without the union showing that they can

effectively change employment conditions (in a short period of time), and protect workers

who complain, collective action is unlikely to happen. The FNV in the Eemshaven therefore

has to maintain on-going servicing practices to gain workers’ trust and simultaneously try to

mobilise them to build pressure on the employers.

While the cleaning sector experience clearly provided the FNV with a valuable repertoire for

approaching the posted workers at the Eemshaven, the challenge of organizing posted

construction workers is of a greater order. Higher language barriers, extremely high labour

turnover rates, and a weaker labour rights regime are fundamental differences between

organizing migrant workers in the cleaning sector, and in construction. The importance of the

intention of workers in cleaning to settle in the Netherlands cannot be overstated, as this

intention was manifested in those workers investment in improving their work environment.

Dutch language training was even one of the demands in the cleaners campaign. Their interest

in learning Dutch meant there was a smaller language barrier, and although the cleaners’ work

contracts were also temporary, most cleaning workers expected to continue in the cleaning

sector more or less indefinitely. The Eemshaven workers, in contrast, will not stay there

beyond the length of the project, nor do they expect to have a lasting relation with the

Netherlands. One could argue that in such a situation union building is a Quixotic exercise –

although they might succeed in protecting their rights better at this one job site they will soon

be gone, and so will their union.

The case shows the clear limitations of the “organizing model”. However, organizing model

tactics provided the FNV unions with a useful repertoire for the Eemshaven – focused effort

to pressure employers via a combination of tactics can pay off in terms of improvements for

workers, although the resource investments needed to do this may not be sustainable over

time and on a larger scale. Reaching out to the workers, keeping organizing efforts secret

from management, mapping the power structure and applying pressure where the power is

most centralized, have all been crucial to what success the unions have had at Eemshaven.

Fundamentally, however, the case clarifies the fact that the FNV unions, like all construction

sector unions in Europe, are operating at the wrong scale. Workers come and go so quickly

that there is no time to overcome the very substantial challenges and organize them. Without

18

transnational union cooperation and coordination the benefits of organizing hyper-mobile

workers will evaporate once the workers have moved on to sites in other countries. One way

to avoid this could be mutual recognition of union membership, which is for example the case

for members of construction unions in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Otherwise, no

matter how well developed and aggressive the tactics, or well resourced the organizing drive,

any successes the unions have will be temporary and will disappear when the workers

involved leave, as they inevitably will.

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