Social and Economic Council (SER)

The SER is the main advisory body of the Dutch government on national and international social and economic policy. Its position is anchored by law since 1950 when the Industrial Organisation Act came into force.

In its advisory capacity the SER represents the interests of trade unions and industry. Being independent from the government and financed by industry, the SER may give advice, solicited or unsolicited, on all major social and economic affairs.

The SER is not only an advisory body, but also an administrative one. Its administrative tasks consist of monitoring commodity and industrial boards, which perform an important role in various parts of the Dutch economy. An "industrial board" represent the interests of a particular branch of industry and is formed by members from both employers sector and union organisations.

Additionally the SER is involved in the enforcement of the Works Council Act, the Enterprise Establishment Act and the Insurance Agencies Act.

The main and best-known task of the SER is to advise the government on social and economic issues. The principal social and economic objectives for the council are as follows:

The SER gives advise, either solicited or unsolicited, to the government on the main outlines of policy. The arguments put forward by the SER are also used by parliament in its debate with the government. In this way the council advises and reports on:

The advisory reports are usually published in book form and are available to the public. These reports are not, however, imperative judgements, and the government is not obliged to follow the SER's advice. However, the government informs the council in depth whether the advice will or will not followed.

In order to carry out its proposed policy the government needs widespread social support. By asking advice from the SER, the government can learn if sufficient support is present among the representative members (link met pagina) of the SER.

Unanimous advice indicates broad-based support but when opinions are divided the government understands that there is a lack of support in major parts of society.

The Industrial Organisation Act sets the SER the task of supervising almost 40 boards representing among others commodity- and central industrial boards. Together these boards are referred to as the statutory trade organisation (pbo).

An industrial board represents the interests of a particular branch of industry and is formed by members from both employers sector and union organisations. Within each particular board regular meetings lead to agreements on matters that are important for that particular branch of industry and will concern activities that individual branches cannot handle themselves, for example a collective advertising campaign.

Industrial boards can also be called upon to implement government measures and guidelines set by the European Union. This works to everyone's advantage as the boards have expert knowledge of their own branches of industry.

It is of primary importance that all agreement and actions taken by the industrial boards are in accordance with the law.

The SER is the highest authority of the statutory trade organisation and in this capacity establishes revises and discontinues boards. It also decides on the composition of their executive committees, on which both employers and union representatives hold seats.

Although the government is responsible for the enactment and enforcement of laws, the SER is, in a number of cases, asked to help with the enforcement. Three examples of such Acts, important for trade and industry, are:

The SER ensures the enforcement of the Insurance Agencies Act (WABB). The law requires the insurance broker must be officially registered. In order to register a candidate must meet special requirements of training , education and must be available for a certain percentage of time at his business location.

The register is administered and updated by the SER. The main objective of this Act is to maintain and increase the quality of insurance broking.

Rules have been laid down by the government to promote sound entrepreneurship. Sometimes an entrepreneur may be granted exemption from these rules. A special department of the SER is in charge of assessing and deciding if such exemptions will be allowed.

In general every firm in the Netherlands with more than 35 employees is legally bound to set up a works council. Some firms are entitled to exemption from this ruling. They must however apply for such an exemption. The SER makes the decisions on whether exemption is granted.

The SER also imposes levies for the training and education of works council members. These levies are paid by the firms where works councils are a statutory requirement. At the request of the SER, levies are collected by the industrial insurance board.

In 1970 the SER established the SER resolution for a code of conduct concerning mergers. This code of conduct, which is also referred to as the SER Merger Code, was drawn up to protect the interests of shareholders and employees in the event of a public bid on shares or merger of companies. The Merger Code has no legal foundation nor is it based on any statutory power of the SER's. The Code depends on the willingness of Dutch enterprises to comply voluntarily with the rules.

Since 5 September 2001, the SER has been supervising the code of conduct for mergers. The former SER Merger Code of 1975 has been subdivided, whereby the rules concerning public bids have completely and without any important modifications been transferred to the Stock Exchange Surveillance Act.

The supervision of public bids will therefore receive a legal foundation and from the same date be taken over by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Authority-FM).

The second part of the former Merger Code is a regulation which was brought into force for the participation of employees in companies. In the new regulation, this element has remained unchanged and has been adapted to a similar arrangement in the Act on works councils. The scope of action for the new code of conduct concerning mergers has been extended by lowering the criteria for the number of employees from 100 to 50. In order to compensate this, mergers concerning businesses in the process of being taken over which have less than 10 employees, will no longer need to be registered.

The SER's advice for the regulation on employees to be also legally founded and its scope of action to be expanded to the government, the non-profit sector and the liberal professions, has been rejected by the cabinet.

Proposed mergers must be reported to the secretary of the SER. Should a conflict arise concerning observance, then the parties involved can make an appeal to the arbitration board which comprises of five people.

There are three groups of members represented in the SER. This is referred to as a tripartite composition and it reflects the social and economic relations in the Netherlands. The first two groups are formed by representatives of unions' and employers' organisations and the third group is formed by independent (crown) members, appointed by the government.

Crown members are independent experts. They are often university professors, holding chairs in economics, finance, law or sociology. They are appointed by the Crown, but are not accountable to the government. With each appointment special care is taken to maintain a fair balance between the various fields of interest and the political views in the country.

Two crown members are appointed in their capacity as president of the Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, and director of the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic policy Analysis. The chairman of the SER is appointed by the Crown on the council's advice. This chairmanship is a full-time position. For the other council members, membership is an additional function.

All public council meetings and closed meetings of the commissions and working parties are attended by government departmental representatives in their capacity of observers.

These officials are appointed because of their expert knowledge in certain policy making areas, their presence enhances the exchange of information with the various government departments.

In order to carry out the manifold tasks and give advice on a wide variety of subjects, the councils working methods must be tuned in accordance. To realise this, the council has the assistance of a number of commissions and a permanent secretariat.

The council has an executive committee. The full council meets on the third Friday of every month. The primary items on the agenda are the discussion and finalisation of the advisory reports to the government.

The advisory reports have previously been well prepared and intensively discussed in a commission or working party. When the advice is not unanimous on all points, the differences of opinion are set out in the report.

The council has set up a large number of committees and working parties to carry out its tasks and prepare its advisory reports. Like the council itself, commissions are made up tripartitely and consist of employers- and union representatives and independent experts. A commission is in principle chaired by a crown member.

Some commissions can give their advice directly to the government, these are the so called article 43 commissions' (article 43 of the Industrial Organisation Act). A special commission is the Administrative Chamber. This commission consists of SER council members commissioned with the preparation and implementation of the administrative tasks of the SER.

In order to prepare and execute its numerous activities the Council has a secretariat at its disposal. It has a workforce of about 160 employees and is led by a Secretary-General.

Although instituted by law, the SER is not a government body. In financial respect too, the SER is independent of the government. The necessary financial means are paid annually by industry through a mandatory tax to the Chamber of Commerce.

To finance the administrative tasks of enforcing several laws there are separate taxation and contribution arrangements.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department

7	Vereniging VNO/NCW (Federation of Netherlands Industry and the Netherlands Christian Federation of Employers)
3	MKB Nederland (Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises)
1	LTO (Agricultural and Horticultural Organisations)

8	FNV (Netherlands Trade Union Confederation)
2	CNV (Confederation of Christian Trade Unions in the Netherlands)
1	MHP (Trade Union Federation for Intermediate and higher Employees)