Schiphol shows what is wrong with the whole of the Netherlands – Joop
yesterday
†
reading time 3 minutes
†
2390 views
†
keep
The chaos at Schiphol is symptomatic of much that has gone wrong in this century. The cause is not a lack of staff. That is one way the national airport has organized the work in the lower regions. The security and handling of the baggage is not carried out by our own staff. The management has outsourced these actions. A number of companies must outline in order to sign a contract. a . arises race to the bottom which led to major savings at client Schiphol, but at the expense of quality.
There was a downward pressure on the ground crew base. It was also flexibility that struck the clock. Guards and handlers notice this during the first corona when passenger aviation largely came to a standstill. They were widely discarded and elders found employment. Now they damn it for a grab penny come back. Schiphol should never have outsourced. How indispensable baggage handlers are, with, for example, advisers to coaches, they can only see through strikes.
Monday evening at Beau van Erven Doren in the talk show a former security guard at Schiphol. Now that he could no longer be taken back by his employer, he dared to tell: he and his colleagues used such current duty rosters that they regularly dozed off unseen on the belt. Passengers stand in line, have to put braces and everything made of metal in a tray and walk through a gate, the suitcase with the bomb could possibly slip through. The former safer said he’d rather fly along the way.
An essential element in all this: Schiphol is truly a state-owned company. The state of the Netherlands owns almost 70% of the shares and the municipality of Amsterdam has a good 20%. The bad example is therefore given with the blessing of the government.
Privatization and mutual differences can be the final result if the actual choice is the consumer. Where that is another institution, such as at airports, in the public transport of youth care, a race to the bottom because in that case the client only looks at their own costs†
The bill is ultimately paid by the professionals. Their employment conditions must be prevented, because otherwise their employer will not win the tender. The pay is under pressure, production requirements are made impossible for them. They must act (I almost wrote: every fart) justify and must adhere to any established procedures. Any own actions, based on professional insight, can be punished.
The consequences are not long in coming: those who can leave the profession. Or the calling must be very strong. For the rest all too often the English proverb ¨If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys¨. You can also see these phenomena in education and healthcare.
And that the Netherlands is close to an existing crisis due to the international emergency: national airport dysfunctional, gas reserves minimal, contractions and after-effects of the corona crisis, tax authorities in credit, no maintenance of air-raid shelters since the 1990s, housing crisis, education crisis, climate crisis, nitrogen crisis. And everywhere you see the disruptive ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Well great. That way we will win the economic war.
For the rest, I am of the opinion that the allowance scandal should not disappear from public opinion, and neither should the affair surrounding Groningen natural gas.
listen The Memory Palacethe podcast by Han van der Horst and John Knieriem about politics and history.