Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 21:53:29 +0200 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Ron van Baden Subject: Fruit Pickers and Wisconsin in the Netherlands For your information: Dear friends, For a lot of Americans Amsterdam was the place to be last week. Amsterdam was, as you all know, the host city of the Gay Games. 15.000 participants from all over the world saw 'tolerant' Holland at its best. But they would know better if they could read the dutch newspapers. Tolerance is, we think, our trademark. But at the same we import ideas from abroad (especially America) that have nothing to do with tolerance. In the saturdays newspaper I read two articles. One article about the wisconsin-system and one article about fruit pickers. Our dutch policy-makers found the solution to their problems, labor-shortages in nearly all branches of the economy, in Wisconsin: ZERO TOLERANCE WITH THE UNEMPLOYED. In the near feature private organizations will be able to sell the labour power of the unemployed and 'welfare-parasites' and make a whole lot of money. Fruit pickers are a special case. Farmers can't find workers for their irregular, bad paid and lousy jobs. So they have to find people that can't refuse to do this kind of work. And according to the farmer organization they have found them: people who have requested asylum. The Gay Games were wonderful. We earned a lot of money and asked them to visit our tolerant country again. But if they will visit our country in 2005 I really don't know what kind of country the will find. I guess that the harsh reality in the states for the poor and low-paid workers (as the fruit pickers) images our own future. Greetings, Ron van Baden Amsterdam 'Working is the curse of the drinking classes' Ron van Baden * Tidorestraat 136 1095 HL Amsterdam 'If you don't know where you're going, then every road will take you there'