A change in leadership was confirmed on Friday at the top of the PvdA, the Labour Party of the Netherlands. The new party leader is current Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher, party chairman Hans Spekman announced in Amsterdam.
Asscher defeated Diederik Samsom by a nine percent margin, winning 54.5 percent of the vote. Asscher had decided fairly late in the process to challenge Samsom for the leadership.
A controversial motion to ban burqas, veils, and other “face-covering clothing” from some Dutch public institutions was approved by a majority of parliament on Tuesday. The motion passed by a show of hands, the lower house of parliament confirmed, and will head to the senate for approval.
The two parties in the ruling coalition agreed to shut down the Binnenhof parliament complex for over five years in order to conduct a complete overhaul of the buildings there. The renovations of the buildings, including the 13th century Ridderzaal, is expected to cost between 500 and 600 million euros.
Members of European Parliament voted to guarantee equal internet access across all websites, and put an end to roaming charges for mobile calls and data use across the European Union. Fees charged to mobile customers in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway that take place when they are in another EU market will be banned from June 15, 2017.
For the first time in history ambulance staff across the nation embarked on a simultaneous strike action after wage negotiations stalled with employer Ambulancezorg Netherlands (AZN).Employees participating in the mass strike action only responded to emergency situations, while scheduled patient transport was be put on hold.
Paramedics across the Netherlands will hold their first-ever nationwide work stoppage on Wednesday, the FNV union announced on Tuesday. Ambulance crews will only respond to dispatch calls for actual emergencies, and will not go ahead with pre-planned patient transport, the union said.
Sick leave payment by small business employers is due to be reduced from the current two-year period down to only a year reports wage benefit agency UWV. Hans Biesheuvel from employers' association Ondernemend Nederland says that this is a step in the right direction, as wages during illness is one of the largest barriers to economic growth in the Netherlands, reported RTL Z.
PvdA (Labour) MP Keklik Yucel wants an extension paid parental leave in the Netherlands to six months after the birth of a baby, of which two months would be allocated for the child's father. Yucel will raise the issue in Wednesday's parliamentary debate with Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher.
If a general election were held this week in the Netherlands, anti-Islam and anti-refugee party PVV would sit atop all others with 30 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament. That would mark a doubling of their current contingency, at the expense of the ruling right-left coalition of the VVD and PvdA (Labour) parties, Dutch pollster Maurice de Hond revealed this week.
A group of around 20 underage Syrian girls are on their way to the main refugee reception facility in Ter Apel to join with the husbands of their arranged marriages, according to broadcaster RTV Noord. At the Tweede Kamer, the Lower House of Dutch Parliament, members of parliament are not happy about the report, which said two of the girls are aged 13 or 14, and a 15 year old in the group wants to join her 38-year-old husband.
Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher hit out at his party’s coalition partner for “stabbing the middle class in the back,” according to the Volkskrant. The Labour party member serves jointly as the Minister of Social Affairs, and accuses the conservative VVD party of increasing the wealth gap by not doing enough to maintain a middle class.
A spray-painted message with an anti-refugee message appeared on the Norderlicht church in Wezep, Gelderland sometime between the late night house of Wednesday or early morning hours of Monday. The entryway wall was defaced with the phrase “Nee AZC,” or “No asylum-seeker center,” above the Jewish Star of David symbol.
Despite a contraction of 41,000 managerial jobs in the Netherlands, a higher percentage of women held supervisory roles in the second quarter of 2015, newly-released data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows. Women now hold over 26 percent of managerial positions at Dutch companies, an increase of 1.6 percent over the same period in 2014.
The Dutch government should prevent firms from loaning private equity companies money to use for business acquisitions, PvdA Member of Parliament Henk Nijboer said on Thursday. The Dutch labour party MP announced on Thursday he would submit the initiative to the parliament the following month.
Shoppers in the Netherlands spent 2.4 percent more on consumption goods this February than a year before, marking the largest increase in four years, reports Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Consumers particularly spent more on natural gas, clothing and home furnishing.
Insurance giant Nationale-Nederlanden (NN) is dismissing its temporary workers in expectation of the new job security law, according to Volkskrant. The law that comes into force July 1 will provide greater job security to temporary employees. Previous incident of supposed law circumvention involved one of the largest Dutch banks, ING.
Workers let go before July 1 will be offered an additional compensation package, ING announced on Wednesday. The bank ruffled feathers with its plan to release workers by the end of June, beating out enforcement of new rules requiring severance pay for those working on temporary and flexible contracts.
Flexible contracts are now even less likely to result in permanent employment for employees after one year of service, new figures from jobs and benefits agency UWV show. Currently, only one in 20 temporary employees, or five percent, will receive a permanent position after a year at the firm.
After months of negotiations, Dutch airline KLM finalized a deal with ground crew labour unions on a new collective bargaining agreement overnight. Leadership at the five trade unions will give their recommendations about the new contract before the full membership votes on its approval later this month, KLM said in a statement.
Those who assist chronically ill friends and family members are more likely to take sick leave with their own employers, according to a new report issued by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCL). The study on the effect of giving informal care to the elderly and chronically ill found that 15 percent of people have a more negative view of their health after providing care, compared to eight percent of non-carers who had a similar outlook over the same period of time.
The management of Blokker struck a deal with union representatives on a set of support measures for current employees being bought out, or those at risk of layoff and dismissal. Meetings between the two sides restarted this week between the discount retail firm's management and representatives of the FNV Handel and CNV Dienstenbond labour unions, the retailer's parent company revealed in a statement
The pilots of Lufthansa will go back on strike on Friday, reports the airline's website. All Friday flights from Amsterdam to Frankfurt and at least one flight to Munich are cancelled.
A drop-off of four seats in the Eerste Kamer for the VVD is a challenge to party leader Prime Minister Mark Rutter. He is optimistic that the current VVD-Labour government coalition will continue, he said Wednesday night.
KLM will cut 22 flights from its schedule beginning in May after the airline was unable to come to an agreement with its labour unions on a new collective bargaining agreement. Regular flights to Bangkok, Nairobi and Shanghai will be scrapped, while trips to new destination Edmonton is postponed, newswire ANP reported.
