From regulated precarity to decent work

Policy brief | October 2020 | page 1 of 8

From regulated precarity to decent work Improving conditions for migrant workers in Dutch agriculture Summary •

Migrant workers in the highly productive Dutch agricultural sector experience unfair labour practices, including structurally poor wages and living standards, insecure contracts and hazardous working conditions. The Covid-19 pandemic has placed this precarity in the spotlight.

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The current Dutch legal framework and economic model enable structurally unfair labour practices that particularly affect Central and Eastern European (CEE) migrant workers.

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This policy brief proposes steps to move from precarity towards decent migrant work in Dutch agriculture. It is based on the Netherlands chapter of the comparative study “Are Agri-Food Workers Only Exploited in Southern Europe? Case Studies on Migrant Labour in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden”.

Keywords Agriculture – Covid-19 – decent work – labour rights – migrant workers – the Netherlands – precarious work