Cabinet's Position on Employee Co-Governance
During the past period the Cabinet has considered employee
co-governance and how this has to be given shape in the Works
Councils Act (Wet op de Ondernemingsraden (WOR)). At the
end of last year Minister Donner of Social Affairs and Employment
presented his position and made proposals to adjust the WOR. These
are not drastic amendments, because the Cabinet concludes
"…that the employee co-governance is given substance by
the employee co-governance field itself. The general opinion from
this field is that in general employee co-governance is working
well and that the WOR offers sufficient basis on which the daily
practice can fall back".
However, the Cabinet is of the opinion that the WOR needs some
adjustments and has made eleven adjustment proposals. These
proposals are the following:
- Simplified election procedure: simultaneously submitting
lists of candidates and reduction of the number of signatures
required.
- The Works Council must set out regulations on how to
communicate with the employees.
- More flexibility in form and composition of
committees.
- Regulating the consequences of the ad hoc decision of the
Works Council to waive its right to advise or right to
consent.
- Supplementing the provision on the enterprise agreement:
improve arrangements regarding legal validity of agreements on
the substantiation of, for instance, the concept of
'important'.
- The enterprise agreement may be terminated in any case with
due observance of a six months' notice period, unless
regulated otherwise.
- Reducing the current number of joint sectoral committees
(24) to three.
- Cancelling the mandatory mediation by the joint sectoral
committees.
- Cancelling the mandatory registration of the Works Council
regulations and the annual report with the joint sectoral
committees.
- Facilitating a flexible division of authorities between the
Central Works Council, Group Works Council and Works
Council.
- Expanding the right to information concerning control
structures in international groups of companies to include the
right to information on the international activities of a
group.
It becomes clear from the above-mentioned proposals that in the
opinion of the Cabinet the WOR needs some adjustments, but that
this will not imply any major changes for practice. The abolition
of the mandatory mediation by the joint sectoral committees will be
the most visible in practice, because the Works Council and/or the
director may then present a dispute directly to the Subdistrict
Court. The Cabinet's proposal to record the consequences of the
ad hoc waiving of the right to advise or the right to consent
raises questions. It seems that in practice this is not really an
issue, because the parties generally make good arrangements in this
respect. The Cabinet's position inter alia states that
if the Works Council wishes to waive its right to advise or right
to consent, the Work Council must first consult the employees. It
seems that the chance that all this will produce unnecessary
bureaucracy cannot be excluded. Time will tell how the Cabinet will
translate the proposal into a bill.