The Wassenaar Agreement (not to be confused with the Wassenaar Arrangement) was an agreement reached in 1982 between employers' organisations and labor unions in the Netherlands to restrain wage growth in return for the adoption of policies to combat unemployment and inflation, such as reductions in working hours and the expansion of part-time employment. The agreement has been credited with ending the wage-price spiral of the 1970s, greatly reducing unemployment and producing strong growth in output and employment. The International Labor Organization describes the Wassenaar as "a groundbreaking agreement, setting the tone for later social pacts in many European countries".
Famous quotes containing the word agreement:
“No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)