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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 72

Holland

Holland.

No System of State insurance for sickness, for accident, or for old age exists in Holland, but a report from the English Consul at Amsterdam, supplies an account of an interesting voluntary insurance scheme for old age, established by the Amsterdam branch of the Employers' Union of the Netherlands.

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The leading idea of the promoters of this experiment was that the question was one which could be better dealt with by voluntary cooperation than by the State system of insurance for old age, which is formulated in Germany. They considered that the serious obstacles which local circumstances and local needs, in their great variety, place in the way of a universal Insurance Law, and the difficulty of providing an even moderately sufficient pension for the workmen, by means of compulsory insurance, were good reasons for giving the preference to private combination. At the same time, it was a principal part of their scheme to secure a State guarantee for the premiums to be paid by employers and workmen jointly.

The Amsterdam branch of the Employers' Union commenced operations on the 1st of April, 1889, and includes at present, establishments employing about 4,000 workmen in the city.

The objects of the Employers' Union may be shortly defined as follows:—
(1)To secure to workmen now in, or in future entering the service of members, a pension of at least 5s. per week after their sixtieth year, and not payable before their fiftieth year, by the contribution on the part of the employers of at least 3d. per man per week, towards the premium necessary to secure such payment, on the condition that the balance of the premium shall be paid by the workman.
(2)To secure to such youths and apprentices as may have been six months in a member's employment, and who have not yet reached the age of fifteen years, a pension on the basis of at least 5s. per week after their sixtieth year, and not payable before their fiftieth year, by the payment on the part of the employers of the full premium necessary to secure such pension until the persons in question have attained their twenty-first year, after which date such employers are only bound to contribute in the proportion stated.