Posting within the EU

Do you want to post an employee from the Netherlands to an EU member state? Or from an EU member state to the Netherlands? In that case, an additional information obligation will apply from August. Before leaving, you must inform the employee of:

• The wages to which the employee is entitled under the applicable law of the host member state;
• Any allowances in connection with the posting and arrangements for the reimbursement of travel, accommodation and meal costs;
• The link to the official national website(s) of the host member state.

You must provide these documents to your employee before departure. You could also include the above information in the employment contract or terms and conditions of employment.

Posting of Workers Directive applies:

The above change only applies to employees who fall within the Posting of Workers Directive (Directive 96/71/EC). These are employees who are temporarily made available to perform a service abroad. Please note that the above changes do not apply to seafaring personnel employed by shipping companies.

No adverse treatment

An employee who invokes the new rights (from the amendment of the law) may not be dismissed or treated adversely for that reason.

Other changes

Furthermore, the main changes are as follows:

• There will be a restriction on the possibility of including an ancillary activities clause, which prevents employees from working elsewhere during their employment. In principle, such stipulations are no longer allowed from 1 August 2022, unless there is an objective justification for this;
• The study costs clause will also come to an end, whereby training costs had to be (partially) repaid in the event of dismissal. Such a study costs clause will no longer be valid from 1 August 2022 for courses that had to be followed (by law or via the collective labour agreement). A study costs clause is still possible for non-compulsory courses;
• On-call workers can submit a request for more predictable and secure work from 1 August 2022, so that employees know at what times they are obliged to work. In addition, employees are only obliged to work at unpredictable working hours if you have announced these working hours at the start of the employment contract;
• Finally, the current information obligation will be further expanded, whereby the employer must from now on provide the employee with information about, among other things, the jobs, a concrete end date, leave arrangements, the procedure for terminating the employment contract, information about the various forms of pay (if applicable) and possibly the conditions regarding training or a probationary period.

Conclusion

It is important to know that the law will come into effect on 1 August 2022, and will affect new and existing employment contracts. There will be little transitional law, which means that it is wise to take this into account in advance. If you will be posting employees abroad in the coming months, you must inform the employee before departure. 

Want to know more?

Would you like to know more about secondment of employees? ABAB Global Mobility Services has in-house expertise for legal and tax support for employers and expats. Please contact Loes van Baast, global mobility specialist - tax, on +3140 2942601 or send Loes an e-mail.