Bad bosses who exploit migrants can be prosecuted

The Cabinet is considering the possibility of taking criminal action against employers who abuse low-skilled foreign workers or smuggle them into the country to do menial work.

Social Affairs Minister Eddy Van Hijum told the Telegraaf in an interview that the cabinet wants to speed up the fight against abuses in the seasonal and temporary work sector, where tens of thousands of people, mostly from Eastern Europe, work.

“Unfortunately there are too many examples of poor working conditions,
Exploitation and poor housing conditions,” he said. “We want to tackle this as quickly as possible.”

Van Hijum said he hoped MPs would support new laws that would allow companies and recruitment agencies to be prosecuted. “Their way of making money with cheap labor … has been sustained for too long,” he said. “It has to stop.”

At the same time, the number of immigrants coming to the Netherlands must be drastically reduced, he said. “Labor migration is out of control,” he told the newspaper. “We need to be more discerning about who we allow to work.”

Economists have repeatedly said that much of the Dutch economy is too dependent on cheap labor.

For example, the chief inspector of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Rits de Boer, called for a rethink in Dutch economic strategy, telling the NRC in an interview that while employers could increase their profits through cheap labor, the social costs – the pressure on them – were in short supply. Housing and schools – is taken up by society.

Distribution centers, slaughterhouses and greenhouses all rely on low-paid staff, and staffing agencies are actively recruiting workers in central and eastern Europe, he said. “They come because the staffing agencies make it easier,” he said.

Earlier this week, figures from the state employment agency UWV showed that migrant workers hired through recruitment agencies are almost six times more likely to be fired on the job than their native Dutch counterparts.