The union years of VVD minister Dennis Wiersma

Tekst Arno Kersten - Redactie Onderwijsblad - 20 maart 2022 - 14 Minuten om te lezen

Image: LSVb

His union time was an experience for life. Dennis Wiersma met his wife there - she worked as a project assistant at the LSVb staff office - with whom he had two children. Together with his fellow board members of the student union, he ended up in a turbulent election year, unexpectedly, due to the fall of the fourth Balkenende cabinet. From May 2011, two eventful years followed at FNV Jong. Wiersma proved himself to his colleagues as someone who dared to row firmly against the current within the aging trade union movement. And in retrospect you could say: step by step he put not only his supporters, but also himself on the map.

Nobody knows Dennis Wiersma anymore when he applies for a job in the spring of 2009 at the National Student Union (LSVb), in the heart of Utrecht. A 23-year-old Frisian, working on the last year of his bachelor's degree in sociology at the University of Groningen. Started at the mavo, he had completed the havo and then the propaedeutic year at the history teacher training in Zwolle. His managerial ambitions are noticeable from an early age.

“I thought: this is a good one,” says János Betkó, who was on the application committee on behalf of the departing LSVb board that nominated Wiersma. “He made a very suitable impression, was sharp, had experience in employee representation. Dennis had walked some notable political sidetracks. But he was able to explain convincingly that he wanted to stand up for the interests of students.”

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Those sidetracks refer to a short-lived flirtation with the political movement of Emile Ratelband, a youth sin in 2003 that is still served up in newspaper articles. Wiersma was sixteen at the time and was on the list of candidates for the parliamentary elections. Before that he was a member of Pim Fortuyn's youth movement. At the age of twenty he would switch to the VVD, the party that his father - an entrepreneur and owner of a snack bar - also voted for.

FNV Young: headwind

When Wiersma applied for a job at the youth network FNV Jong in the spring of 2011 - he was then working on his master's degree in administration and policy at Utrecht University - he was again very successful. “He really convinced me that he could stand up for the interests of young people on the labor market. The fact that he was a stacker in education, I found extra in his favor: that shows perseverance,” says Esther de Jong, then head of the staff office and member of the selection committee.

She soon gets to know him as a driven driver, who can really stand his ground. “In the beginning we were very much at odds: I operated from my gut and he could be rock hard from the ratio. That was sometimes very difficult, but we have come to see each other's strengths.”

In the beginning we were very conflicted: I operated from my feeling and he could be very hard from the ratio

At the same time as chairman Wiersma, Bernard Koekoek will be appointed as the new vice-chairman. “To get acquainted, we went for a cup of coffee and then he told me that he was a VVD member. Like it was something life-threatening that I needed to know about. I didn't find it that exciting at all. I didn't see him as a VVD member, but as someone who, like me, wanted to stand up for the interests of young people in the union”, says Koekoek.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smu0SBEkg1A

They don't get time to acclimatize. Soon Wiersma is late into the night at a federation council meeting about the controversial pension agreement, which would lead to a crisis within the FNV. “I was at work neatly at ten o'clock and was just about to make an introduction round. But then came the crisis meeting and we met with the trade unions of the FNV until two in the morning. Pizzas were delivered, I saw union presidents discussing fiercely, Agnes Jongerius was present. Suddenly I was in the middle of the heat of the battle,” he says in an interview with de Volkskrant at the time.

A month later, there is a strong headwind that is aimed at Wiersma. Trade unionists express their dissatisfaction through reactions to the FNV website and anonymous statements in newspapers: what is this VVD member doing at FNV Jong? “There were people who were really indecent criticism. At one of the meetings where Dennis himself was not present, a small group formed opposite me at the end of the afternoon. They came screaming to tell us why we had brought in someone from the VVD. In their view, you couldn't be a member of the VVD and serve the interests of the union," says Koekoek.

“The commotion that summer was great, I remember that well,” said Jacky Driessen, who worked at the support staff office at the time. “That became less, but Dennis was still looked at with a sideways eye for a long time when you visited some unions. He handled it well, he wanted to talk to the critics. He remained calm. Very clever, I thought.”

Brief CV Auke Dennis Wiersma (Franeker, February 19, 1986)

1998-2002 Mavo, RSG Simon Vestdijk
2002-2004 HAVO, CSG Anna Maria van Schurman
2004-2005 Teacher training history Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle
2005-2009 Sociology, University of Groningen
2009-2010 Vice-chairman LSVb
2010-2012 Master's degree in governance and policy, Utrecht University
2011-2013 Chairman FNV Jong
2013-2017 Program Manager PGGM
March 2017-September 2021 Member of the House of Representatives
August 2021-January 2022 State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment
January 2022-present Minister for primary and secondary education

LSVb: atypical

In the spring of 2009 the new LSVb board will be trained by the old guard. At first sight, the brand new quintet does not fit the stereotypical LSVb image of wide trousers, long hair, hippie-like. “During a training weekend I gave everyone one of my old metal shirts as a gift”, Betkó chuckles. They later turn out to be used at most as a sleep shirt. Chairman Gerard Oosterwijk and vice-chairman Wiersma prefer to come to the offices in an ironed shirt.

Wiersma in particular is a striking LSVb member in many respects. “His hair fresh in the gel, neat clothes, shirt on. Jokes were also made about his clothing, he could also laugh about it himself," says former colleague director Jasmijn Koets. “Dennis had little interest in that alternative and was not a vegetarian either. When he cooked, you didn't have to expect left-turned lentil soup," says Anne van Uden-van Dijk, treasurer at the time.

Dennis was more about the consultation than the campaigning. In that he actually suited us much more than he did with the LSVb

Wiersma was not only an atypical LSVb outwardly, according to Henno van Horssen, then chairman of the Interstedelijk Studenten Overleg (ISO), the significantly less activist and somewhat more liberal counterpart of the LSVb. “Dennis was more involved in the consultation than in the campaign. In this he actually suited us much more than with the LSVb. We had regular consultations with the two organizations together and Dennis was our counterpart within the LSVb, he formed a connection.”

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The new LSVb board in May 2009. Top right Dennis Wiersma. Image: LSVb

“Dennis was already the most political of all of us at the time”, social democrat Oosterwijk looks back. “I was also super political myself, but he went one step further. Dennis already had a twitter account and was very active with it. He often listened to Looking To Tomorrow before going to sleep. That political affinity also played an important role in meetings, he was someone I liked to spar with.”

Down to earth, business-analytical, a work pace that sometimes makes you "crazy", these are qualifications that keep coming back in conversations about Wiersma. Someone who can define well, and someone who knows where he wants to be in five years.

Dennis knows very well what he wants. That's what set him apart from the start

“Dennis knows very well what he wants,” says Koets. “That set him apart from the start, even when allocating the portfolios. While most of us were still thinking about what appealed to us, he was already clearly interested in subjects: educational accessibility, employee participation and lobbying and the media also appealed to him. It intrigued him even then how you can have an impact, how do you get in the news? He thought a lot about the tactics: how can we get our agenda executed?”

FNV Jong: figurehead

Dennis Wiersma is easy to come into the picture, also two years later at FNV Jong. Just a dip in the newspaper archives yields an unprecedented amount of news reports and interviews. As a figurehead of the youth network, he constantly opposes the cabinet. And with that also against his own party, which is the largest for the first time since the elections of June 2010. The economic crisis is deepening, youth unemployment is rising and a huge package of austerity measures is on the table.

“Dennis was in the media a lot, I think every journalist in the Netherlands knew him,” says co-director Koekoek. “Dennis also has a tremendous talent for answering the question he wished he had been asked, rather than the one being asked.”

Dennis also has a tremendous talent for answering the question he wanted to be asked

Wiersma knows that strategic media attention can be a means of pressure, also to shake up the cushions internally. In addition to social themes such as rising youth unemployment and temporary contracts, FNV Jong also tries to address the neglected position of young people within the aging trade union movement and the pension system. A role that the youth club is not grateful for. As a youth network, FNV Jong is still part of the trade union federation. FNV members up to the age of 35 are automatically 'connected', but the network has no members and no formal authority. Critical statements are sometimes highly regarded. “There was always an FNV press officer around us,” says Driessen. “What am I actually chairman of?” Dennis wondered.

Dennis Wiersma as chairman of FNV Jong, during an FNV Congress in 2013. Image: Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC 2.0

Together with his fellow director and the office staff, Wiersma is preparing for a sensational step: in June 2012, FNV Jong will become an independent trade union. Unusual also in view of the zeitgeist, because with the trade union movement, Jetta Klijnsma and her fellow quartermasters concluded that the new, future-proof trade union movement is one in which individual unions would merge as much as possible into a whole. Three years later, FNV Jong will still be absorbed into the new trade union movement. At the same time, Wiersma sees the importance of a broad trade union front and works together with CNV Youth. They are often in the news with initiatives such as the Pensioenlab, with which they want to increase the participation of young people in pension funds.

During his union years, Wiersma feels like a fish in water at the table during official consultations or when visiting ministers and members of parliament. “Dennis does very well when you put him on a podium, or when he has to consult with influential administrators and politicians,” says Driessen. “At that time, he was a little less comfortable talking to young people at a school in Amsterdam-West or at a trade fair with members. Then he seemed a little insecure at times.”

LSVb: confrontation

His fellow board members at the LSVb gradually got to know Wiersma as a manager with a sense of political pragmatism. In 2009 and 2010, the student union will be confronted with the imminent introduction of a student loan system, which seems inevitable, partly because of the enormous budget cuts and political relations. They struggle with it indoors. Do you have to hold on to the basic grant unconditionally, because the supporters expect that from you?

“The LSVb has a history of campaigning. Dennis and I tried to challenge that: what is the best strategy, what is the most realistic? If a case is lost at some point, wouldn't it be better to try and talk about what is? So we tried to prick a little here and there,” says Koets.

If a case is lost at some point, wouldn't it be better to try to talk about what is?

This changed after the sudden fall of the Balkenende IV cabinet in February 2010. Early elections are suddenly imminent, and that offers new opportunities to increase the pressure on politics in The Hague. In the run-up to a major student manifestation on Amsterdam's Museumplein on 21 May - three weeks before the elections, thousands of students are mobilized - the battle is once again focused entirely on preserving the basic grant.

Gerard Oosterwijk will then no longer be chairman. At the end of March it turns out that he unexpectedly resigned. 'Difference of opinion' is the only thing that newspapers record, nobody wants to say anything about it. In the months and weeks before the split, activist Oosterwijk started to run more and more, involved in actions that were not coordinated with the rest of the board. It is regularly discussed indoors to keep everyone together. The tension gradually increases: the student union is being pulled from all sides, the still young board members are working long days.

Eventually it comes to a confrontation. Wiersma forces his colleagues to choose: “It's Gerard or me.”

Dennis played hard, you have to be able to do that in politics. We talked about it again later. Also about the impact it had on me, but also on him

“Dennis played it hard, you have to be able to do that in politics too. We talked about it again later. Also about the impact it had on me, but also on him. We have both learned from it”, Oosterwijk looks back. He puts his hand into his own bosom. “I didn't see it coming, I didn't realize I was going too fast. We all worked sixty hours a week, there was a lot of pressure, we were all young and quite inexperienced. It was a lesson afterwards: if you don't have the rest with you, then you have a problem."

Koets: “Dennis has highlighted an unavoidable situation. In doing so, he forced a breakthrough. We all thought it was very intense. At the same time, I think it was necessary. Sometimes you have to confront to change something. Dennis showed that.”

Epilogue: career path

There is one question that always comes back. How does Dennis Wiersma reconcile the points of contention in his union years with his membership of the VVD, a party that views the world very differently on important issues? A party that joined the previous verkiezingen hardly wanted to invest in education. A profile in the Volkskrant last year characterized him as a chameleon that takes on the color of its environment.

“Dennis has always been loyal to the organizations where he was employed,” says Wilco Bos, who was a voluntary policy and lobby officer at the LSVb office until December 2009. “That was not a fake enthusiasm. I think he belongs to a group of young, more socially committed VVD members, more on the liberal side than the right-wing conservative.”

Dennis has always been loyal to the side of the organizations where he has been employed. That was not an act of enthusiasm

After several years at pension provider PGGM, Wiersma came to the House of Representatives in 2017. He does not have the blemish of the previous VVD cabinet - he was only a substitute state secretary for social affairs, a stepping stone to his current job. With the plans from the coalition agreement, he has the space and money to invest in education, very different from the spirit of crisis during his union years.

The new minister for primary and secondary education is not very fond of left/right thinking. “Dennis has always avoided those boxes,” says Jasmijn Koets, who has remained friends with Wiersma. “I find that refreshing. He looks for topics where he can make a difference and he doesn't run away from anything. Who comes up with such a career path? He just does it.”

Who is what nowadays:

Janos Betko: policy advisor Municipality of Nijmegen, researcher at Radboud University
Jasmine Coach: HR (project) manager bol.com
Anne van Uden-van Dijk: notary
Gerard Oosterwijk: director of the progressive urban movement Brussels
Henry van Horssen: program manager Techport
Wilco Bosch: Project leader and advisor sustainable mobility at Royal HaskoningDHV, party leader PvdA Harderwijk
Bernard Cuckoo: director education & research FNV
Esther Young: daily director FNV Horecabond
Jackie Driessen: project manager and advisor wind energy

A shorter version of this story can be found in the March issue of the Education magazine, which is sent to members eleven times a year. Learn more about all the benefits of the AOb-membership? Click here.