PRESS RELEASE
July 2001

Under Dutch law, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (Sociaal-Economische Raad, SER) is assigned the task of assessing the representative status of all employers’ organisations and trade unions that participate in public bodies.
Examples of such bodies include the SER itself, the regional chambers of commerce and the executives of commodity and industrial boards. In the case of the executives of commodity and industrial boards, the SER is required not only to determine the representative status of each participant organisation but also to establish whether the public body as a whole enjoys sufficient general support from both employers and employees. This brochure briefly describes the criteria and procedures used by the SER to determine and assess the representative status of organisations and the support enjoyed by public bodies.