Prime Minister Rutte flies a kite: Polish, Bulgarish and Rumanian workers in The Netherlands working for the minimum wage of their own country. Well, if that isn’t a good idea?!

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of The Netherlands is someone you can trust in having a bad idea every now and then. This one is from February, 18.

His latest outpouring is this: it should be allowed to workers from Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania and other East-European countries to work for the minimum wage of their own home country, instead of earning the minimum wage of The Netherlands.

Three reasons why this is not the brightest idea:

1.   East-European workers do in many cases the jobs that Dutch people don’t want to do, no matter how high unemployment is. Instead of earning the Dutch wages they deserve for doing these jobs, they would get the same lousy payment as when being at home. The shops here, however, have Dutch prices, not the Polish or Bulgarish ones. Poverty lurks here for these people.

2.   Already a lot of Dutch companies are treating their East-European workers not like they should do. In some cases you could even call this straightaway: criminal exploitation. It would be a bad thing when companies could do this with the law in their hand. Those minimum wages are there for a reason!

3.   Dutch people would be the victims of this situation, as they are forced by law to work for the Dutch minimum wage. East-European workers would have an unfair advantage above Dutch workers, even when the latter would do the same job for a minimum wage.

Therefore it is time to let Prime Minister Rutte know: this is NOT a good idea.

You can send him a message at his twitteraccount: @MinPres. Please don’t hesitate to do so.

Ernst