NETHERLANDS LAW AND PRACTICE Contributed by: Friederike Henke, Ingrid Cools, Philip ter Burg, IJsbrand Uljée, Suzan van de Kam and Epke Spijkerman, BUREN
No legal provision dictates the language in which employment contracts should be con - cluded; they do not necessarily have to be in Dutch, with international companies commonly offering employees employment contracts in English. Most important is that the employee understands the content of the document. Employment contracts can be concluded for a definite period of time (fixed-term contracts) or an indefinite period of time (indefinite contracts). Consecutive fixed-term employment contracts, if extended, are automatically converted into indefinite contracts, once certain criteria are met. This applies if the number of consecutive con - tracts exceeds three, or if the aggregate term of the consecutive contracts exceeds 36 months. 4.3 Working Time Under the Dutch Working Hours Act, employees are generally allowed to work a maximum of 12 hours per day and a maximum of 60 hours per week. Over a period of 16 consecutive weeks, employees may not work more than 48 hours per week on average. Over a period of four consecu - tive weeks, the weekly average may not be more than 55 hours. Collective labour agreements or employee hand - books may contain provisions on the standard working hours in a company. 4.4 Termination of Employment Contracts The dismissal of employees is governed by mandatory statutory dismissal provisions. The system differs substantially from most other EU countries. Fixed-term contracts end by operation of law on the agreed end date.
Employers may terminate indefinite contracts by giving notice of termination. The most striking difference to other jurisdictions is that employers must, in principle, first apply for a dismissal per - mit from the governmental agency called UWV Werkbedrijf before they can give such notice, or they must request the court to terminate the contract. The manner of termination for employ - ers is prescribed by law, depending on the rea - son for termination: termination for economic reasons or due to long-term incapacity for work must be effected through the UWV procedure, while dismissal on other grounds has to take place through termination by the court. Unlike employers, employees do not require a permit from the UWV nor have to go to court to terminate their employment contract. The statutory notice period for employees is one month. The statutory notice period for employ - ers is between one and four months, depending on the duration of the employment relationship. Deviating contractual notice is possible to some extent. Several dismissal prohibitions apply. For exam - ple, sick employees are protected against termi - nation of employment during the first two years of their sickness and also pregnant employees benefit from dismissal protection. Both fixed-term contracts and indefinite con - tracts can be terminated by mutual consent between the employer and the employee. Employers usually offer financial compensation, based on (at least) the “transition payment” (see below), and it is common to confirm the termi - nation in a settlement agreement, by which the parties grant each other full and final discharge. Indefinite contracts and fixed-term contracts longer than six months may include a proba -
538 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook