After years of peace, it is starting to get restless behind the dikes. The FNV trade union federation – with 1.2 million members and led by Lodewijk de Waal – is at the end of its tether. Its members have no faith in the cabinet led by J.P. Balkenende.
Leen van den Berg followed the leader of the Dutch unions from the protest on Coolsingel in Rotterdam to the massive demonstration on Museumplein in Amsterdam.
Instead of crisis manager, Lodewijk de Waal is a trade union man again. He leads his troops – along Coolsingel, at the furnaces and on Saturday 2 October on Museumplein. De Waal, born in 1950 in Rotterdam, talks about himself in “Hot Autumn”. He talks about who he is and what choices he has to make: "If I have to choose between people like Economics minister L.J. Brinkhorst or the furnace men, I know which to choose." He grew up in a middle-class family. The family was Catholics and father worked in a bank. But they were left wing and in that De Waal sees a certain contradiction that he still recognizes in himself today: "Someone once called me a strange combination of regent and rebel."

Jan Ketelaars
Paul de Heer