ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyses the development of trade union policies in the Netherlands with regard to immigration and immigrant workers. It looks not only at official trade union policies, but also gives attention to their factual behaviour and the arguments trade unions put forward to justify the trade union policies and their factual behaviour. The recruitment of foreign labour was seen as a temporary measure: when the Dutch economy would no longer need foreigners, then the foreign workers would return home. Since the economic recession of 1967, a debate had developed concerning the significance and function of foreign workers in the Dutch economy. The minorities policies of the government did not succeed in improving the social position of minorities. Especially in the labour market, minorities found themselves in a deprived position. At the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, the trade union federations finally came out with minorities policies.
