National Report - Netherlands Broadening the spectrum of employee voice in workplace innovation

This report discusses the role of workers’ participation in the Netherlands in the context of workand organisation-related innovations. The research is based on analyses of academic literature, policy documents, collective agreements, a preliminary workers’ survey, four case studies (15 indepth interviews) and some observations from a workshop with 25 stakeholders.

In retrospect, we see fluctuating social partners’ attention in issues of technological and social innovation in the Netherlands, and the effect of this on employment, jobs and work processes. In recent years, this academic and social relevance has increased (again) in the context of digitisation, robotisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). A recent survey shows that there is strong support among the working population for more collective bargaining and social dialogue on work-related AI regulations. Nevertheless, we do not see too much in the way of regulations on worker participation during technological and social innovations in collective agreements. AI and its effects on working conditions and jobs might be a driving force for collective bargaining partiesto do more. As a consequence of the low presence of unions at company and workplace levels in the Netherlands, the main representative bodiesfor workers in the Netherlands to discusstechnological and social innovation are the works councils. In addition to that, several forms of direct worker articipation are always important, including for influential and well-functioning works councils, as an instrument to keep workers involved, motivated and well prepared in times of organisational and technological change in the workplace.

Although co-determination legislation in the Netherlands does give works councils formally and in principle quite strong consultation rights in case of the introduction of and/or change in new technology in the company, three of the four case studies in this report show that works councils are not prioritising this task, but that they are slowly searching for new roles in this field, such as in discussing work related risks of AI. Compared to earlier technological innovations, controlling AI seems extra challenging because of its gradually introduction into work processes, including by some (white collar) employees themselves. The first case study (Solvay) is a best case of an active European Works Council that agreed on a ‘Global Framework Agreement on Digital Transformation’ in order to stimulate regular technology assessments by management and workers’ representatives in all the companies. This multinational is also preparing new regulations on discussing work-related risks of AI. The other cases show more limited involvements of works councils, HR managers and IT specialists in integrating new technologies with social and organisational policies. Regarding direct participation, we found in all cases quite ad-hoc patterns of different direct worker participation, largely dependent on the initiative of management. Interestingly, one of the case studies, namely the one in the care sector, provides some evidence on the possibility for (sectoral) collective bargaining parties to promote direct employee voice within companies.