Legal Advice Working from Home | Legal Aid Clinic

Questioner

Dear Sir/Madam, Since April 2013, work for a joint arrangement of 9 collaborating municipalities and the province of South Holland. When I started working for my employer, I was asked to choose whether I wanted to perform my work from the office or from my home address. I chose my home address and the director informed me by letter that my home address is considered a place of employment where I may make use of compensation in accordance with the legal position regulation. For my work situation this means that based on my appointment (now) I perform my work from home 36 hours a week. The work at home mainly consists of preparing files and recording them in a database via a laptop of the employer. Tax legislation states that they consider a home workplace to be a working environment if people work from home at least 1 day a week. My employer now comes up with the following: The writer establishes a causal link between the place of employment and the setting up of a workplace at his home address. “In accordance with the legal position regulations of the ....” we follow the ARG of The Hague. In doing so, he relies on 'the legal position regulation of the .....'. The Telework Regulation 2008 is the regulation of The Hague that we follow. It stipulates that a civil servant who has been granted permission to telework will be reimbursed, provided or made available on loan for the furnishing of the workspace within his home where the telework takes place, up to a maximum of € 1,815.00 per five calendar years. The basis for this regulation is found in Article 15:1:25 of the ARG, which stipulates the following: “The board may determine in which cases not otherwise provided for compensation and reimbursement of costs will be granted.” The definition of teleworking in the scheme is as follows: “Regularly performing work related to the position of civil servant at a location other than the place of employment and using information and telecommunications technology.” However, the place of employment of the writer is his home address. He chose this himself. Conclusion: the writer is not entitled to compensation under the Telework scheme 2008. My employer therefore states that the scheme only applies if the work is carried out at a location other than the place of employment. However, the Working Conditions Act and Decree impose obligations on the employer with regard to setting up a screen workplace. In this case, also for the home workplace in my opinion. My question to you is, does the Employment Conditions Regulation of the municipality of The Hague not override national legislation? This is not possible, is it?

Lawyer

I share your opinion. Either the municipality states that your workplace is at home and then the workplace must be set up on that ground so that the workplace meets the Arbo requirements or it is a teleworkplace and then the workplace must also meet the Arbo requirements. In short, one way or another, the municipality must offer you a workplace that meets the Arbo requirements.

Questioner

Thank you for your response. This will at least help me to enter the discussion with the employer more strongly.

Lawyer

You can still refer your employer to http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/topics/labor-conditions/documents-en-publicaties/reports/2011/12/12/het-nieuwe-werken-hoe-blijf-je-er-gezond-bij.html