After extensive negotiations, trade unions FNV Flex, CNV Vakmensen and De Unie, together with industry associations ABU and NBBU, have reached an agreement on a new collective agreement for temporary workers. This brand-new collective agreement contains a number of new terms and conditions of employment aimed at bringing the position of temporary workers closer to that of permanent employees. Of particular interest, for instance, are the end of the agency clause in case of illness/incapacity for work and the longer period for claiming transitional compensation.
In the past period, a number of rulings showed that confusion arose in the temporary employment sector about the exact consequences of reporting sick in the case of a temporary employment contract with an agency clause. It was often assumed in practice that the temporary employment contract would end by operation of law. This automatic termination is off the table and parties have agreed that from 1 July 2023 these agency work employment contracts will also continue until the agreed end date, even if you have reported yourself ill. Article 15(1) of the new ABU Collective Labour Agreement is supposed to ensure this.
Furthermore, from 1 April 2023, temporary workers will be allowed to take a lot longer to claim transitional compensation. Pursuant to Section 7:673 of the Civil Code, a temporary employment agency may owe a transition fee to the temporary worker. Normally, if the employer does not pay this compensation, the temporary worker would be able to go to court within three months of the end of employment to still claim this compensation. The three months the temporary worker has will now be extended to 12 months. This is exceptional! As Section 7:686a of the Civil Code is mandatory law and therefore cannot be deviated from just like that via the collective agreement. The parties to the CAO have therefore decided to waive the article of law in order to make the new article 15 paragraph 8 ABU CAO the norm. Will one of the parties still appeal in court to the original statutory expiry period? Then, according to the collective agreement parties, this will be deemed unacceptable by the standards of reasonableness and fairness.
All in all, these two changes are very important for the temporary agency sector and will ensure great changes for temporary workers. If you want more clarification or have any questions following the above, feel free to call our Employment Law specialists!