Amsterdam puts 8 tonnes into social safety toolkit cultural sector. Does that include a mirror? 

"Cross-border behaviour, in any form, has no place anywhere, and yet we often see it happening in society and also in the arts and culture sector.” Amsterdam alderman Touria Meliani (Culture) now wants to really do something about abuses in the cultural sector. In a post about this on the website of the municipality she states: “Everyone has the right to a safe workplace where you feel protected, heard and respected and social safety should therefore not be a prerequisite, but it should be the basis.” 

So with a sum of €800,000, Amsterdam wants to work on things that go wrong. According to the municipality, this revolves around “culture change, knowledge sharing and standardisation and monitoring. By doing so, the municipality wants to encourage organisations to structurally work on a safe working culture in which everyone takes responsibility for each other. To this end, investments will be made in a ‘bystander programme’, a Social Safety Code toolkit with practical guidelines and vouchers of 1,500 euros for small institutions to engage a health and safety expert, for example." 

Abuses at Ahlbom

Most important measure, however, is that if the boundary is proven to be crossed, the municipality's subsidy will also be at risk. “Opportunities are being explored to require organisations to actively contribute through a code of conduct, confidential advisor, reporting protocol or periodic employee surveys."

The question, of course, is whether this investment will prevent the problems. After all, the measure cannot be separated from the abuses we found at Jakop Ahlbom Company. Journalist Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen has written about this in two investigative reports execution: Rape under the carpet - Culture Press and Raped? According to the protocols, no. - Cultural press. 

That a serious case of sexually transgressive behaviour at the company itself was mishandled may be obvious. However, what the councillor's action does not address is the manner in which the municipality yourself responded. Formal procedures were misapplied, information was not shared, or ignored, the messenger put in a bad light. 

Institutional failure

In her follow-up study, Van Frankenhuyzen found that politicians and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts as grantmakers not only failed in their oversight role, but also actively created a system where the accused party was the only voice heard, formal procedures served as an excuse for inaction, reputation and liability outweighed safety, and a rape victim fell between two stools. That is institutional failure at all levels.

The fact that the company has now come out with a statement that once again dismisses all responsibility fits that picture of institutional failure: Statement Jakop Ahlbom Company. 

So the main question is what municipality will do with the promised knowledge sharing via a baseline measurement and a sector-wide survey on social safety and risk factors in the workplace. Will it also involve itself in this? 

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