Hester Houwing

Hester Houwing (1978) obtained an MSc degree in Labour Sociology at the University of Amsterdam in January 2004. During her last year of studying, she worked as an intern at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced labour Studies (AIAS). Together with Jelle Visser and Rob de Boer she did a project for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on “trade union membership and collective bargaining in non-western countries”. This project covered 9 countries among which Brazil, Indonesia and Senegal.

Hester wrote her Master thesis on “Diffusion of HRM Practices in the Dutch Operations of two Multinationals in the Food Industry”. While writing her thesis she worked at AIAS on a project commissioned by trade union federation FNV titled “The Impact of Globalisation on Industrial Relations in Multinationals in the Netherlands”. After she obtained her MSc degree she worked at AIAS as a junior researcher on the representativeness of social interest organisations in the cleaning, temporary agency work, and culture/media sector.

September 1st 2004, Hester started a Ph.D. project funded by NWO under the supervision of Jelle Visser. The project is titled “Variations in flexibility and Security” – agency work and the role of collective bargaining institutions”. The project examines the use of the 1999 Flexibility and Security Law by investigating how employers, temporary work agencies and trade unions have responded to the new incentive structure set up by the law. The F&S law tries to promote flexibility through a redistribution of risks between employers, agencies and employees, allowing deviation from the law by collective agreement (‘mandated law’ or driekwartbindend recht). Beyond the insight in the phenomenon of agency work, employment contracting and labour market flexibility, the project contributes to the study of the institutions and behaviour, a key issue in law, sociology and economics.