6-3-2025
While working at one of the sorting bins, Johan and I talk about the way e-waste recycling is financed. He tells me about producer responsibility and StichtingOpen, and about extra funding from local municipalities that enable work opportunities for people who have a distance to the labour market. Johan tells me that ‘people who are a little blunt or autistic, and find it harder to keep a normal job, are able to work here because of subsidies.’ I notice that he has some discomfort speaking about this. Specifically the word subsidies seems to carry a negative connotation, likely because it applies to his own situation. As an artist, I also finance my profession through various kinds of subsidies. But in my field, receiving a subsidy is a positive thing. People write proudly on their Instagram ‘Made possible by the generous support of the Mondrian Foundation’. How is it that income is valued so differently?
Johan changes the subject to his daughter. She is eleven years old and just took her high school entrance examination. Johan proudly tells me she did well, and that she got admitted to the highest level of education. She is very smart. Johan explains that when they watch television series together, she notices details in plot lines that he misses. I can imagine that after she finishes high school and university she will, in contrast to her father, choose where and under what conditions to work. She will likely get a job that doesn’t need to be subsidised. Johan is proud of this.
I wonder why work in an organisation that receives subsidy is seen as less valuable than work in which people seem to be independent. In the canteen, during the break, I see men drive lorries in and out of the premises. When they pass by, corporate names written on the sides of their trucks fill up the window of the canteen. We read:
VAN BEEK LOGISTIEK
Some of the men have decorated their lorries with feminine names printed on licence plates. Nina, Angelique, Linde. Maarten tells me how the drivers work for various transport companies. I wonder how the men inside the canteen, whose jobs are subsidised, look at these lorry drivers. Do they compare themselves? The drivers probably have a better income, and the lorry is a traditional masculine symbol. Are the drivers considered to be manlier because they seem to be independent?