Netherlands Employment Law Update

Two published rulings this week dealt (among other things) with the question of whether an employee was entitled to wages: 1) if the employee must be present 15 minutes before the start of the shift; and 2) during a smoke break.

The first ruling concerned an employee of employment agency AFS who was employed at Schiphol. A memo from AFS stipulated that: “The starting time at Schiphol’s BOS Coordination is always at least 15 minutes (fifteen minutes) before the start of the scheduled service”.

The employees had to report to the responsible coordinator at Schiphol 15 minutes before the start of their shift. In those 15 minutes they had to sign their presence, grab the walkie-talkie, they were told which gate they had to go to and within that time they also had to be at the gate. They had to be at the gate punctually at the start time of their shift. AFS tried to argue that the time it takes to get from the BOS coordination to the gate qualified as ‘commuting’. The judge does not fall for that. According to the judge, the employee was not allowed to freely dispose of his time in that quarter of an hour: there was no time to whatsapp or drink coffee. The quarter of an hour counts as working time and must be paid. AFS and presumably other employment agencies at Schiphol will have to count their knots quickly.

In another ruling, it was indirectly addressed whether the employer was allowed to reclaim wages because of long smoke breaks that the employee took. A total of four times twenty minutes a day. In the absence of a clear policy on the right to (un)paid smoking breaks, the employer was not allowed to reclaim wages. So it is possible to make a policy on this, while smoking the employee in principle – of course we can think of many exceptions – does not perform any work and there is no right to wages.

Both employers were obliged to pay the wages, and the ruling at Schiphol in particular is likely to make many more employees happy.

Read both rulings here: Right to wages during smoke break and Right to wages mandatory to be present fifteen minutes before the start of the shift

By Hocker, Netherlands, a Transatlantic Law International Affiliated Firm. 

For further information or for any assistance please contact netherlandslabor@transatlanticlaw.com

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