The government has reached a deal with employers and trade unions on labour reforms. The agreement, reached after months of tough negotiations, covers collective bargaining, temporary contracts, subcontracting and retraining schemes. Under the new agreement, companies will maintain the right to flexible working hours, but wages will be set by sectoral, not business-wide, agreements, restoring the bargaining power of trade unions. Under the new legislation, the improper use of temporary contracts will be penalised with fines and social security penalties. A furlough scheme introduced to soften the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for workers is also to be made permanent.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.