The American tech company Uber has circumvented the Dutch dismissal rules in the dismissal of employees at its head office in Amsterdam. The personnel signed a dismissal agreement outside the UWV under high pressure. It turns out from research from NRC.
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A quarter of the 27,000 employees had to be fired, the taxi app decided in May this year. Reason: turnover had fallen sharply due to the corona virus.
UWV
For the employees affected in the Netherlands, the company applied for a collective application for dismissal from the UWV, which checks whether the dismissals are lawful. However, before the UWV could offer a solution, almost all employees had already signed up for dismissal voluntarily, in exchange for financial compensation.
The Uber employees say in conversations with the newspaper that this happened under high pressure. The staff who had to leave were disconnected from all systems the day after they heard it.
Expats
Daily reminders were also sent to sign the agreement and were informed that their position had ‘ceased to exist’. The employees say in conversations with the newspaper that they have little knowledge of Dutch employment law. It often concerns expats from outside the EU.
Ten of the 200 employees made redundant decided not to sign the agreement. Five months after the dismissal announcement, they have not yet received a definite answer as to whether their dismissal was lawful. The UWV and Uber are still discussing this.
Substantiation
According to the works council of Uber, the trade union FNV and the UWV, the American company has great difficulty in substantiating the need for the layoffs. The works council of the taxi app would also not have been informed in time.
Uber lets in NRC know that the ‘Dutch dismissal rules have been fully applied and the correct information has been shared with the works council.’
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