Advice - Random Walks in the Low Countries

Live Olympic coverage in Europe

August 9, 2008 by Dave Hampton

While event schedules and scores are always available at the official Chinese Olympic site (above), I was looking for live streaming coverage of the various events from the Internet. Unfortunately, NBC‘s streams will not play in Europe, BBC’s won’t play in the Netherlands, and, while EuroSport is streaming their cable channels, 1, 2, and News for a 4.50 euro/mo. fee, it’s only selections and summaries of events.

Fortunately, the European Broadcast Union is streaming live coverage of a wide selection of events on a dozen channels at no charge: open camera, competitor annotations, no commentary. It seems to require IE to run: it gave an error in Firefox. You do have to refresh the connection every 20 minutes, but the quality is excellent.

Dutch electrical systems

July 26, 2008 by Dave Hampton

Summer Shower The lights went out at midday.

I didn’t notice, still hammering at the data filling my spreadsheet. With the scientists headed for ‘garden leave’ around the first of August, our paper won’t get done if the preprocessing isn’t finished. It was only when I noticed the battery icon, curiously displayed at the lower right, that I stretched and broke to see what was going on.

Cord still plugged in, but nothing coming to any of the electronics plugged into the plug multiplier. Lights were out, and so were the ones in the next room, and in the hallway. And now I noticed the silence: no dishwasher, no washing machine.

<sigh> I must have overloaded the circuit trying to finish the housework faster.

In the US, electricity comes in through the mains to a central box in the garage or basement. There are tidy columns of circuit breakers there, each with a typed paper label: it’s generally a matter of turning everything off, flipping the switches back on, and then increasing the load gradually.

The circuit box for my apartment in Arnhem is in the hall closet, no garage, but otherwise has the same neat rows of switches, only labeled in Dutch. And all perfectly fine. Curious.

I flipped a few breakers on and off hopefully. Nothing.

However, the illuminated button that opens the front door was still lit: that explained why the downstairs neighbors weren’t knocking to see what I’d done. So, it must be local to me.

I got a flashlight and headed to the next logical spot: the basement.

Sure enough, there is a fuse box there, but nothing like I’ve ever seen. Screw-in fuses. Rotary switches. The meter box. I have to say that the Dutch are neat: the wiring was laid out on a wooden board, following straight runs with tiedowns, neat lines and angles that would have made any boat owner proud. The disk on the electric meter was turning slowly, so it wasn’t a problem at the street (no dials like a US meter though, just a wide rolling counter).

I played with the rotary switches, and managed to turn off power to the basement: I’m not sure if these are master switches or primary breakers. They all looked consistently positioned in any case. So, I tackled the fuses. They unscrew, like the US version, but the box of spares thoughtfully provided were just housings. I rummaged around and found a small box of torpedo-shaped inserts. Very strange: the fuses here disassemble so that you can replace the innards?

I swapped the centers and pressed the pieces back together, reassembled the box, and the lights came back on upstairs.

Almost.

The two main lights over the dining room table remained off. Just bulbs, I thought, putting two new 60W bulbs in, to no effect. Everything else in the room worked, so I tackled the rotary switch on the wall. It came free after removing a few screws and nuts, revealing a little red drawer with a tiny fuse secreted away inside. It had a spare lodged into a bracket next to it, so I swapped that in and pushed the power again.

The switch immediately started sputtering and popping, arcing inside. The lights flickered.

Lovely.

The wires, stiff with age, had partially broken as I disassembled the switch from the wall. I stripped and trimmed the wires, reassembled the connections, and tried again: the lights came back on without the special effects. Finally!

Two hours spent tracing the problems: I am amazed at the Chinese box that constitutes Dutch house wiring. Triple redundancy, with a local fuse, circuit breakers, and mains fuses. I guess it’s typical for the times, or maybe just for the culture? In any case, I laid in a full stock of parts today in case it happens again

Unfortunately, fatally distracted, I never did pick up the thread of work on the data.

‘tomorrow…

The Dutch Social Plan process

July 8, 2008 by Dave Hampton

Our Dutch workforce voted in favor of the Social Plan proposal at our company last week, officially kicking off the transfer of the business back to our headquarters in the US. Events will move quickly now, and the entire process should be complete within a few months.

For me, it has been an education. I don’t think that our US folks really understood the process when we began, highlighting the importance of taking time to learn the cross-cultural differences early in the planning process.

So, for context, here’s my personal perspectives on the Dutch Social Plan process (a good overview is also given at EIRO).

The Dutch Works Councils Act mandates that any business with over 50 people will establish a Works Council “in order to ensure the proper consultation and representation of the persons working in the enterprise”.

I think that this is a good thing. In my observation, it promotes dialog and the free flow of authoritative information between management and the workers, aligns and involves everyone in the operation of the business, and assures that issues and opportunities get discussion and agreement. Excesses by both management and the unions in the US might be prevented if both were forced to be more open and consultative about their actions. The current alternative, demonization and marginalization of unions rationalized by “trickle-down” and globalization promoters, is, in fact, the greatest threat facing the US worker today.

When Dutch management wants to make a major change in the way that the business is being run, it needs to solicit the advice of the Works Council. During that consultation, the workers need to be supplied with “a summary of the grounds for the decision, its expected consequences for persons working in the enterprise, and the measures proposed for dealing with such consequences.” A major action like a shutdown triggers two responsibilities for the Council: to approve the advice (or to reject it with appeal to a court), and to negotiate the severance terms (the Social Plan) on behalf of the workforce.

Severance agreements are much more generous in the Netherlands than in the US: a month of salary per year of service vs. a week for each year in the US. The Social Plan also includes provisions for outplacement and education assistance, continuation of health and pension benefits, work-to-work assistance, and perhaps hardship bonuses. The goal is to provide a consistent and fair treatment of all people affected.

Our Works Council, although new to the process, acted well in their role on behalf of the workforce, and seemed trusted in return. They gathered appropriate advisors, organized subgroups to make recommendations on specific issues, and held regular meetings to communicate progress and to take suggestions form the team. There was disagreement and doubts. But the representatives were able to keep the discussions constructive and effective without getting loudly adversarial with either side throughout the negotiations.

The biggest factor in the negotiations is the structure of the Cantonal Formula, which governs the magnitude of the severance payouts. The formula multiplies corrected years of service (older workers get a multiplier for their years beyond age 40) times gross monthly salary times a correction factor. The correction factor, usually between 0.25 and 2.0, varies depending on the state of the business and tradeoffs with other parts of the Plan. It is closely watched and diligently negotiated by both sides, and is the main indicator of the quality of any settlement proposal.

Once a proposal is finalized, it is presented to the workers and put to a vote after a week’s consideration and discussion: 50% + 1 is required for approval. Once passed, the terms of the settlement are distributed to each worker, the agreement is individually signed, and the terms take effect over a subsequent three month period.

The system seemed to work well, allowing for discussion of the event and securing a fair settlement which gives each employee a boost towards continuing their life after the company is gone. There is still emotion about leaving and dispersing, uncertainty about what the next job will be. But people are starting to talk about how they can use their settlement to start businesses, provide for retirement, or relocate to find new work. A substantial number are taking this chance to start over in a new field; many are finding jobs at equivalent or greater salary in the tight Dutch labor market.

There doesn’t seem to be the bitterness and individual divisiveness that seems to characterize labor / management negotiations in the US. I like to think that this is a result of a balanced allocation of power and a structure of mutual consultation.

Giving labor a voice doesn’t have to be ‘bad for business’.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my own observations, which may be incorrect or incomplete in some particulars. As a US employee working under an expatriate agreement, I do not have any stake in the process or the Plan. This essay does not contain any proprietary details of our Social Plan Agreement.

Photo credit European Commission