Germany and the Netherlands

Abstract

This chapter examines sex-worker unionization projects in Germany and the Netherlands. The rationale for examining them together, and apart from other countries in western Europe, is to be found in a number of points. First, the two countries exhibit greater similarities in the way that their political systems have dealt with regulating prostitution (through legalization). Second, the industrial relations systems of both countries are still largely based upon postwar settlements of social democracy in terms of co-determination (Germany) and the ‘polder’ system (the Netherlands), whereby employment relations are quite heavily regulated and sectoral bargaining — underpinned by state action and law — predominates. Third, both countries have seen not only bona fide attempts to construct sex-worker unionization projects but also the failure of these projects. This chapter considers the experiments in unionizing prostitutes through Ver.di in Germany and the Red Thread union in the Netherlands.