Lockouts in the Netherlands: Why statistics on labour disputes must discriminate between strikes and lockouts, and why new statistics need to be compiled

Abstract

Lockouts are a phenomenon greatly underestima ted in research into labour relations. Despite the ILO recom mendations many national statistical bureaus do not make a distinction between strikes and lockouts. This practice leads to false conclusions about workers' behaviour. After all, strikes and lockouts are two sides of the medal of labour re lations but really two different sides. Strikes are a weapon of workers, whereas lockouts can be a means by which em ployers force their workers into a certain direction. The data on labour relations should therefore discriminate between strikes and lockouts. Because the official data often neglect this, it may be necessary to do own research into the sub ject. This article shows the argument for discrimination tak ing the Netherlands as an example with some references to other countries. Lockouts as a weapon of capital Between March and September 2003 the management of the Golden Reach factory in Calcutta, India, locked out 1,400 of its workers in response to strikes called in protest at plans to reorganize the company. The Golden Reach factory is a subsidiary of Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate. Unilever has never declared a in the Netherlands. The conglomerate seems to have differ ent policies towards labour, depending on the country in which it operates. Another example illustrates this difference on a more global scale. The English search engine of 'www.labourstart.org' returns 62 hits for the word lockout Address all communications to: Sjaak van der Velden, International Institute for Social History (IISG), Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam, Netherlands; e-mail: sw@iisg.nl.