This December, the Dutch online retailers announced that they are going to establish a collective labor agreement to better withstand such international eCommerce giants as Amazon or JD.com. The eCommerce sphere in the Netherlands lacks regulation, thus allowing more powerful players to compete in many aspects, for example, on wages. So the collective labor agreement is created to make foreign companies adhere to the general rules. This should help to enforce better conditions for the employees.
The initiators of the change are Inretail - the Dutch largest trade association in non-food retail and Picnic - an online supermarket with no brick branches. They are discussing the new association with several online stores, and currently, Wehcamp - one of the leading Dutch fashion retailers - expressed their interest in participating. However, Bol.com - one of the big websites selling general merchandising products, is hesitant. The initiative is going to be targeted at pure online organizations with at least 80% of their turnover involved in business activities in the eCommerce sphere.
However, the work has just begun. The initiative must be supported by the majority of the market to become generally binding.
