Labour Party leader Wouter Bos wants to eliminate jobs that are too strenuous. He says people should not have to retire early due to the physical or mental requirements of their work.

On the face of it, the proposal sounds humane. The Labour Party looking out for its core constituency: workers. But many in that core constituency are furious about Mr Bos's proposal. That's because the Labour leader proposed eliminating strenuous jobs while defending the cabinet's plans to rise the retirement age from 65 to 67.

One of the main concerns labour unions have about raising the retirement age is that workers in some sectors are physically incapable of working for so many years. In certain sectors, people can qualify for early retirement.

Hard work
Mr Bos did not specify what he meant by strenuous work. A construction worker lifting building materials probably counts, but what about schoolteachers, where burnout is a major problem? How about day care personnel, who have to lift babies and toddlers all day?

According to research centre TNO, 20 percent of the Dutch workforce has jobs considered physically strenuous. Nearly as many work in mentally stressful jobs.

Paul Kuijer is a researcher at the Coronel Institute for Labour and Health. He says that while most of the factories in the Netherlands have been closed down, there is still a lot of building and digging in this country. Mr Kuijer admits that there are always individual differences in how people experience their jobs, but there is a general consensus that construction, fire fighters, police and health care workers all work under strenuous conditions.

Cannot be done
Defining strenuous jobs is only half the problem with Mr Bos's proposal. Even if one agrees on a definition, just how does the Labour Party leader envision getting rid of physically or mentally taxing work? Technological advances can only go so far.

For instance, in the construction sector, many measures to relieve physical stress have already been implemented. Neither Mr Kuijer, nor the umbrella union organisation FNV, believe construction workers can be fully relieved of heavy labour by technological advances.

Mr Bos says workers should be given other tasks when they are no longer capable of doing the physical work. But construction firms' offices aren't large enough for all workers who reach a certain age to continue working behind a desk until they reach the proposed retirement age of 67.

The health care sector presents Mr Bos with another major problem. Many jobs in the sector combine physical and mental stress. Even worse, budget cutting in the sector has resulted in a worsening personnel shortage.

The FNV called Mr Bos's plan naive. That doesn't do the Labour Party leader justice. The proposal was a product of some mental heavy lifting: a clever way to appear sympathetic to workers, while raising the retirement age against their wishes.

(Photo: Hilary Staples)