This dissertation reconstructs histories of work and workplace organising in the Netherlands between 1960 and 2020. The focus is on workers at the distribution centres and supermarkets of Albert Heijn (Ahold) and at the Unox sausage and soup factory (Unilever). Together, these companies employed a diverse workforce of men and women, migrants and natives, as well as young and old workers. The study introduces the concept of self-organisation to emphasise and analyse workers’ initiative, decision-making and active participation. Additionally, it examines broader economic transformations, such as the expansion of the service sector, the growth of flexible employment, and the introduction of automation, from the workers’ perspective.
It demonstrates that workers organised within, outside of, and in interaction with both formal, modern trade unions and less formal, more grassroots collectives. Challenging conventional, top-down, union-centred narratives of postwar labour...
Show moreThis dissertation reconstructs histories of work and workplace organising in the Netherlands between 1960 and 2020. The focus is on workers at the distribution centres and supermarkets of Albert Heijn (Ahold) and at the Unox sausage and soup factory (Unilever). Together, these companies employed a diverse workforce of men and women, migrants and natives, as well as young and old workers. The study introduces the concept of self-organisation to emphasise and analyse workers’ initiative, decision-making and active participation. Additionally, it examines broader economic transformations, such as the expansion of the service sector, the growth of flexible employment, and the introduction of automation, from the workers’ perspective.
It demonstrates that workers organised within, outside of, and in interaction with both formal, modern trade unions and less formal, more grassroots collectives. Challenging conventional, top-down, union-centred narratives of postwar labour history, the dissertation argues that self-organisation can emerge from the bottom up and be stimulated from the top down, and that its role is more complex and important than is usually assumed. Furthermore, it reveals that the widely debated features of today’s workplace have a longer history than is often recognised. It traces the large-scale implementation of various flexible contracts within the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands back to the period 1963–1972. Similarly, the Albert Heijn distribution centre of the 1960s and 1970s is found to be the precursor of today’s distribution centres in several ways.
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