The Dutch cabinet may next week be able to fulfil one of its wishes: pushing up the pensionable age by two years to 67.

Union representative Henk van der Kolk has told NOS public radio that negotiations between employers and the unions about alternative measures are deadlocked.

Not popular
The Dutch cabinet decided in March that the retirement age must go up for economic reasons, but the unions and the employers were given until October to come up with an alternative. The Netherlands has a tradition of negotiated labour agreements; pitched battles between unions and employers are rare.

The proposed measure is not popular, particularly among people in physically demanding jobs who don't relish the prospect of another two years' work. The government says that people need to work longer in order to keep the national pension system affordable. It is also thought to help increase the so-called "participation in the labour market", that is, the percentage of the population that is in a job. Currently, about 65 percent of men and women aged between 15 and 65 are working - and paying taxes.

Flatly rejected
Mr Van der Kolk says the employers have broken their vow to look for a viable alternative to later pensioning. He says the employers were never going to cooperate. Every proposal put forward by his FNV union was flatly rejected, he adds. If the cabinet plan for retirement at 67 is pushed through, FNV is threatening to retaliate with steep wage demands in the collective labour term negotiations later this year.

Keep them on the job
A survey by the Dutch Social Affairs Ministry found that one in five employers say that "for the sake of staffing quality" they want their personnel to keep working until 65 instead of taking early retirement. Eight percent of them say that keeping employees in a job after 65 is essential for their business. The survey polled 5,000 employers.