 |
|
SECTOR
Home | What's New
| About SECTOR | Meetings
| Publications | Discussion
Forum | Contact Us
| Links | Site
Map
|
|
|
SAP 2.64/WP.120
The Dutch flower sector:
Structure, trends and employmentPaul Elshof
Food World Research and Consultancy
For some parts of the chain it is possible to indicate the level of employment precisely. The figures in table 10 are given by Bloemenbureau Holland (the marketing and market research arm of the flower industry) financed by growers, auctions and traders.
Table 10. Total employment in the floristry sector, Netherlands, 1995
| Production | 25 000 |
| Auctions | 4 500 |
| Suppliers | 6 000 |
| Wholesale/exporters | 13 000 |
| Retail | 22 500 |
| Total | 71 000 |
All figures except for the auctions are estimates. Those at production level seem too low at effectively an average of two employees per firm. The reason for this is quite likely the omission of temporary and family workers from the calculations. In peak periods temporary workers easily swamp permanent, and, as mentioned previously, smaller firms operate mostly on the basis of family labour. Even fixed employment seems to have been understated, estimates given in interviews indicating a level of 30,000-35,000. Of this, 35 per cent work with fixed permanent contracts, while the rest operate through labour agencies that recruit for temporary jobs. The bigger temporary employment agencies have their own specialized offices for the horticultural sector. Sometimes they compete with each other on wage levels. The gross salary for permanent staff is Dfl.35 per hour according to the Collective Agreement relevant for this sector; temporary workers receive Dfl.25-28. Permanent workers benefit from employers' contributions to social insurance.
Five firms employ over 100 workers-- Klaas Visser, De Ridder, Gebr. Man, P. Kooi, and Van Staveren. Some of these have their total acreage split over different farms and locations. Peak periods such as Mothers' Day (May) would see the hiring of many temporary workers. The level of employment as given for the suppliers is as in the case for growers an estimate. Probably the figures are somewhat higher. In an earlier part the structure of retail has been given in percentages of market share. An indication of employment in 1995 can be given by mentioning the number of outlets according to the Bloemenbureau Holland: traditional flower shops, 4,700; street vendors, 1,950; supermarkets, 2,100; garden centres, 500; petrol stations, 2,000; total, 11,250.
Many different forms of labour contract exist. Of the 35,000 workers employed in the production of flowers, one-third are permanent workers and two-thirds temporary. Permanent workers may work full time or part time, while the temporary workers may additionally work seasonally. A full-time working week is 38 hours, five days a week (7.6 hours per day). A permanent contract for part-time work has a minimum number of six hours per week. This contract can go from a minimum of six to a maximum of 37 hours a week. No data are available on the distribution of employment contracts over the various forms. Growers do tend to employ high numbers of illegal immigrant workers, who are thus in a weak position to negotiate. Scores of nationalities are involved. Between 1990 and 1994 many illegal workers came from Eastern European countries, mainly Poland, on a seasonal basis. For growers this was a boon because of the normal difficulty of finding sufficient labour in agriculture. Automation has provided a solution. During holiday periods this has allowed growers to employ students and young people for a maximum of four weeks without having to pay social premiums and tax contributions.
Total employment at the auctions is 4,500, of which Aalsmeer has 1,823 and Holland 1,550. Specific figures are available for the Aalsmeer auction (table 11). These figures, stretching over 20 years, show interesting changes in labour contracts and mirror the general development in Dutch society where the number of part-time jobs has grown much faster than full-time jobs. They may be taken as representative of the whole auction sector.
Table 11. Employment at the Aalsmeer auction, 1975-95
|
|
1975 | 1980 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 |
| Total | 585 | 869 | 1 775 | 1 791 | 1 823 |
| Full time | 412 | 623 | 1 051 | 1 059 | 1 062 |
| Part time | 173 | 236 | 724 | 732 | 761 |
Normal working hours are 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. For some functions the starting hour may be as early as 4 a.m. During the winter when high volumes of flowers arrive from other supplying countries the work-week may stretch to 60-80 hours. In compensation, those involved get three months off in summer.
Of the total employed, 1,443 are male and 380 female. Earlier, in the description of auctions, the figures are detailed by type of occupation. More than 50 per cent (1,061) are employed in logistics, mostly men, responsible for the transport of trolleys inside the auction premises.
Of the total number of employees in this department -- 13,000 -- 60 per cent are employed in the so-called production activities, i.e. all activities involved in receiving the flowers after passing the auction clock -- handling, cleaning, packing or repacking, preparation for dispatch, and making assortments and bouquets. The sector is characterized by insiders as the "wild west". There is no collective labour agreement; most employees are women, who at best have individual contracts, many for only 20 hours a week. Such contracts absolve the employers from having to pay salaries when public holidays happen to fall on working days. In practice, many work five days a week and ten hours a day while having only 20-hour contracts.
For this activity no specific data are available. Most transport is organized by the wholesalers/exporters. It is not clear if employment in transport is integrated in the total figure for the wholesalers. A rough estimate of the number of drivers involved in transport from the auctions to customers is 1,500-2,000. Apart from these, there are also a number involved in an earlier phase of transport -- the delivery of freshly harvested flowers and plants to the auctions. A rough estimate here is at least 300 jobs.
Various trade unions have membership but compared to other sectors and branches the level of unionization is low -- around 20 per cent.
Growers
Level of unionization not known. The most important trade union organizing agricultural workers, the Voedingsbond FNV, has a total membership of 13,000 in various branches apart from flower-growing. Union membership in flower-growing may be estimated at 2,500-5,000. Workers hired through temporary labour agencies are covered by another agreement negotiated by another trade union.
Auctions
About 1,000 union members out of a total employment of 4,500.
Wholesalers
300-500 union members out of a total of 13,000 employees -- the least organized sector.
Transport
No data available. The union organizing the transport sector is not active in the flower transport sector.
Trade unions involved are:
-- three trade unions affiliated to the FNV (Dutch Socialist Trade Union Confederation): Voedingsbond FNV (food and agricultural workers); Dienstenbond FNV (services/retail/banking: here the auctions and wholesalers); Vervoersbond FNV (transport);
-- three trade unions affiliated to the Dutch Christian Trade Union Confederation (CNV): Industrie en Voedingsbond CNV (industry/food industry/agriculture); Dienstenbond CNV (services, retail, banking, auctions, wholesalers); Vervoersbond CNV (transport);
-- one independent union, Unie BHLP, organizing staff, administrative and technical personnel.
The FNV trade unions are in general the largest and they act as spokesman and coordinator of all unions involved in bargaining and negotiations. The CNV trade unions conclude various types of collective labour agreements (CAOs). Specific CAOs exist for horticulture (including flower-growing), seeds sector, and the tissue culture sector. Aalsmeer and Holland each have their own CAO. One smaller auction follows the CAO for horticulture and one (Vleuten) has an Arbeidsreglement (a set of rules covering employment and procedures, not negotiated but unilaterally declared as the rule by the employer). Recently a specific CAO exists for temporary workers, for those hired by temporary agencies and those moving between jobs. Officially temporary workers in the floristry sector -- mostly employed in seasonal work during the growing phase -- should be covered by this agreement. The Dienstenbonden FNV and CNV (the unions for services) are partners in this agreement. But they could not indicate how many employees were actually covered by the standard laid down in this agreement, if any at all. The general impression on the union side was that although agreements exist in most cases they are not implemented and employees are employed on conditions worse than the agreement details. One of the most important future tasks of unions is not so much the conclusion of new and better agreements but implementation of the existing ones.
One development that could be helpful in this direction is that four major FNV-affiliated trade unions covering the private market sector were negotiating a full merger at the beginning of 1998. Discussions started at the end of 1996. Three of the trade unions are already organized in the flower sector: Voedingsbond FNV, Dienstenbond FNV and Vervoersbond FNV (agriculture, food, services, transport). The fourth union is the Industriebond FNV (active in the metal, chemical, food-processing and textile industries). When merged, the mega union will have a membership of 550,000. The Voedingsbond FNV and the Dienstenbond FNV are already attempting better coordination of their activities in the flower sector.
Some major specialist companies have their headquarters in the Netherlands for tissue culture, which has been an important technique for plant propagation since the end of the 1970s. In 1988, 67 tissue culture laboratories existed in the country out of a total of 248 in Western Europe. Total production was 61 million plants out of a total of 212 million in Western Europe as a whole. A trend has existed for a number of years to shift production of tissue culture to low-wage countries, such as Poland, Portugal, India, Malaysia, South Africa and Brazil. In consequence, the number of companies operating in the Netherlands decreased from 30 in 1990 to 20 at the end of 1994. The Netherlands kept the more sophisticated parts of tissue culture propagation but most mass-production-related tissue culture was shifted.
In 1991-92, employees of eight tissue culture firms were employed under the CAO for horticulture. Because many tissue culture activities are not covered by this CAO, unions and employers agreed to start negotiations for a specific agreement for this subsection in flower-growing. An agreement for 1 April 1996 to 31 March 1998 was concluded covering, at the beginning, 16 tissue culture firms and 600 employees. At the beginning of 1997, only 200 employees were employed in these firms.
Various employers' organizations operate in the sector, one part of their functions being to negotiate and conclude collective labour agreements with the trade unions.
In horticulture (and its flower-growing part -- bulbs, open soil, glasshouses) three national confederations of farmers' organizations are involved: KNLC (a general "neutral" farmers' organization that is not linked with the religious mainstream in Dutch society); NCBT (the Protestant Christian farmers' organization); KNBT (the Catholic farmers' organization). These three national organizations had their equivalents at the regional level. A few years ago they merged into one organization, the Land en Tuinbouw Organisatie (LTO) (the Agriculture and Horticulture Organization). The LTO represents the interests of growers. The old religious demarcation lines became of secondary importance with this merger, a reflection of the globalization of the trade.
In tissue culture the CAO has been concluded by the Vereniging van Groothandelaren in Bloemkwekeryprodukten (VGB) (the Association of Wholesalers and Exporters of Floristry Products). In wholesale trade the Dienstenbonden FNV and CNV are starting discussions for the regulation of labour contracts with a collective labour agreement. A strong argument for this is the growing necessity for wholesalers to raise the quality they can deliver to customers by creating a wide segmentation in the variety of flower bouquets and compositions. This implies the need for better qualified employees and an in-built structure of guaranteeing standard qualities. This requires training and clean working conditions to attract workers in sufficient numbers and quality.
In the seeds industry the Dutch Association of Growers of Seeds and Plantlets (NVZP) acts as the coordinator of employers' interests. One important employers' organization in the sector is the Vereniging van Bloemenveilingen in Nederland (VBN) (the Association of Flower Auctions in the Netherlands). It is small, with its board of directors drawn from the directors of the seven flower auctions. Its core activities are the coordination and synchronization of the policies of the flower auctions, representation, and acting as a lobby and pressure group.
Recurring agenda topics of the VBN over the past years have been:
-- VAT policies in the EU: VAT levels on flowers range from 3-7 per cent in Luxembourg, France, Netherlands and Germany to 20-25 per cent in Belgium, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries. A harmonization has long been sought at lower levels to stimulate the market.
-- EU trade policies, mostly directly related to GATT: important are the negotiations of the EU with third countries about import regulations and import quotas.
-- Phytosanitary items: import regulations and minimum standards in international trade and in trade relations with specific countries.
-- Harmonization of codes (for colours, bar codes, etc.): the Dutch auctions are in a position to create world standards for many items involved.
-- Quality control, standardization and uniformity of quality standards: a policy of VBN is to refuse the acceptance of low-quality flowers at the auctions.
-- Transport and logistics: coordinated policies can help to minimize logistic costs and transport moves and prevent congestion.
-- Market research: in coordination with involved parties such as growers and wholesalers to fine tune the production and marketing of specific types of flowers for specific markets.
The recent trends in industrial relations have been contradictory. New forms of regulation and protection have been developed, such as the collective agreement for the tissue culture sector and the collective agreement for those employed by temporary labour agencies, so that on paper conditions improved for labour. In practice, however, the opposite was true because of rising competition and the squeeze on margins for growers and traders. A positive aspect is that the process of coordination has started between the two most important trade unions (FNV) involved in organizing rural workers in agriculture/horticulture and services (auctions, traders-exporters and labour agencies). This merger will ensure a clear presence for labour in the sector.
As part of a broader network of tripartite organizations in the Netherlands, the flower sector also has some tripartite institutions comprising employers, trade unions and government representatives. Their history goes back to the period immediately following the Second World War when the reconstruction needs of the moment made such tripartite institutions possible. It was a step that supported a process whereby conflicts of interests could be controlled by continuous discussion between workers and employers, with government officials playing a mediating role. The role of these tripartite institutions is actually much debated at the moment. The re-engineering of the Dutch economy, of whole branches of industry and of course also labour relations as a result of the globalization of competition puts a strain on the preparedness to look for a common base for the future. The debate concentrates on two options: (i) to abolish these structures and define new policies in a segmented way, each interest group for itself; (ii) to reform the structure and contents of these organizations and the unique discussion platform to work out items of common interest.