Prime minister Mark Rutte telephoned new employers’ leader Hans de Boer this weekend after De Boer gave a string of interviews in which he criticised government policy.

According to broadcaster Nos, Rutte ‘reminded’ De Boer that the VNO-NCW employers’ organisation has agreed to support a number of reforms together with the unions.

The deal, sealed by De Boer’s predecessor Bernard Wientjes, covers labour market reform, pensions, social security benefits and sheltered work schemes, and is known as the ‘social agreement’.

Intact

‘The social agreement is intact, including agreements made about unemployment benefit,’ Nos television quoted Rutte as saying after the phone call.

The prime minister said he understood that De Boer wanted to make his mark and that he had only asked for clarification of his position.

De Boer gave a string of interviews to the Dutch media at the start of his tenure and appeared to criticise the agreement in several of them.

Taxes

He told Nos that he wanted to see taxes reduced for people on middle incomes. ‘The taxes in the Netherlands are far too high,’ he said in the interview. He also called for more investment in residential housing.

In the Volkskrant, De Boer called for changes to the government’s plans to scrap most sheltered work schemes and reintegrate people with a handicap into the regular workforce. In the agreement, employers pledge to employ 100,000 people with disabilities or face a quota.

He told the NRC that if this is enshrined in law, it will be ‘symbol politics’. ‘This is not how things work,’ he said. ‘Ministers live in a certain reality. They think “let us make a law about it”. Soon they will be forcing you to only breathe twice a minute’.

Stunt

In Trouw he appeared to distance himself from the agreement with ministers and unions. ‘It looks like nothing,’ he said. ‘There is a signature but if politicians try and pull this stunt again, I will say sort it out yourselves,’ he said.

He told the Telegraaf he wanted to see fewer demands in pay and conditions agreements. ‘Pay deals must be more sober than they now are,’ he said. If unions do not moderate their demands, many Dutch companies will abandon the current way of reaching agreements by consensus, he said.

In the Financieele Dagblad, De Boer called for fundamental change in the tax system. The Netherlands must step out of the system in which employers deduct tax and premiums from salaries, he said

Instead, workers should be given a gross salary and the tax office should then make demands on the workers. ‘If people are confronted with write-offs from their bank account every month, they will start to think and that will increase public involvement at the next election,’ he said.