International

“Despite all of the government’s fine words, and especially those of Labour Party Employment Minister Lodewijk Asscher, temping agencies and gangmasters are being given a free hand to bring hundreds of thousands of eastern European workers here and exploit them by means of pay which amounts to dumping.” So said SP leader Emile Roemer today on national television. The SP wants to see these rogue agencies and employers tackled in as tough a manner as possible and fined accordingly, with permits introduced for the employment of workers from central and eastern European countries.

Metal workers in the maritime industry are angry. Thousands of jobs threaten to disappear because employers en masse prefer to hire cheap labour from abroad.