The big political news of the day is junior finance minister Jan Kees de Jager who has been cleared – by a committee which he set up himself – of being a bad boss.

The committee looked into claims made in the Volkskrant that employment contracts at ISM eCompany, where De Jager was owner/director until he became a minister, blamed workers themselves if they developed RSI.
The paper also said pension payments had been late and that De Jager had worked against the setting up of a works council. So what did the committee find? That De Jager had not been a bad boy and that the ‘mistakes in administrative policy’ were not his fault anyway. So that’s all right then.
However, the committee did confirm that employment contracts put the responsibility for RSI with the workers and said that this clause could have been torn up in court.
It also said that the fact that there was no works council at the company was not a problem – even though it is a legal requirement – because employees could have set one up if they had wanted to.
And as for the late payment of pension premiums, the committee said this had not caused any problems. Best of all, the committee did not speak to any critical ex-workers.
The bill for this whitewash sorry, research, is being paid by the finance ministry.