Redundancy in Healthcare: Your Legal Questions Answered


Questioner

My employer in healthcare intends to declare a number of fte (not a round number) redundant. NOW my question is, on the internet I only find 'whole' persons who become redundant in examples of the mirroring principle, but not, for example, employees who become redundant for, for example, 15 hours. May my employer declare, for example, 35 hours redundant and distribute them over the various age groups according to the mirroring principle?

Lawyer

Redundancy for a few hours is possible if this has been agreed. I recommend checking that out.

Questioner

Thanks for your answer. That should be stipulated in the collective labor agreement? That the employer has the option to have redundant staff work a number of hours less? This concerns staff with permanent appointments for x number of fixed hours. The organization also has a social policy framework. The proposal that still has to be approved by the Works Council states an expected decrease in work expressed in non-round numbers in terms of FTE. This means that according to the reflection principle that is maintained here, hours will be lost from different age groups.

Lawyer

For business economic reasons an employer can also request dismissal for a few hours. You are then entitled to unemployment benefit. With reflection, the collective labor agreement or HR is the example.

Questioner

- In this case, it concerns a very large hospital. Is redundancy due to reorganization a business economic reason? (they expect a reduction in the number of FTEs due to the reorganization, the total number is now around 5.3 FTEs for this function group). - In addition, our collective labor agreement does not state that employees may express their wish to be declared redundant and that this has priority over the reflection principle, and so the reflection principle is used. Is there a possibility/a law/regulation outside of a collective labor agreement whereby this may have priority over 'skimming off' in the shortest term of employment while retaining the right to unemployment benefits?

Lawyer

A reorganisation can be for business economic reasons. In that case, permission is given for redundancy. So I guess you want to become redundant?

Questioner

I would rather become completely redundant than have to give up more than a third of my employment. As it stands now, that will be the case for me and others.

Lawyer

You can also request redundancy yourself. To encourage your employer to give permission for this, you can suggest not to use the transition payment. I advise you to do this in such a way that you can continue to rely on unemployment benefits.

Questioner

As far as the staff knows, there is a reorganization because we are moving to a new building in 2020. The way of working is changing, which means that in the run-up to the move we can 'work towards' and get used to the new logistics. In those plans, they expect that there will hardly be any room for administrative staff. It does not seem to me to be a business economic reason, but a choice to implement the way of working and the skimming of staff 'in the run-up to'. The cutting of hours of permanent contracts is inevitable according to management, so staff must start handing in hours, some must leave altogether, but as mentioned before, it is not about round numbers. Then every six months it is reassessed whether new redundancies have arisen. Of course, I can already sense the storm coming, namely that hours will be shaved off every six months. Actually, I don't have a clear answer to the question, is my employer allowed to do that? Declare hours redundant? So declare employees partially redundant? Are there conceivable scenarios where this does not apply?

Questioner

Can you tell me whether the reflection principle has been applied correctly in the example below? There are 7 employees working within the interchangeable group of employees, which results in redundancy. 5 employees in group 55+ 2 employees in group 35-44 The starting point is that as few employees as possible become redundant. As stated in the reorganization plan, 1.21 FTE will become redundant. The number of redundant employees will be at least 2 employees, as 1.0 FTE is the maximum number of FTE per employee. In case of surplus of 1 person: 5/7*1=0.71 2/7*1=0.28 You look at the highest number directly after the decimal point, or in the age group consisting of 5 employees. In this case, this concerns the employee from the age category 55+ with the shortest employment who becomes redundant. Then second person 5/7*2=1.43 2/7*2=0.57 For the first person, you now look at the highest number before the decimal point (as was already clear from the above, this is the employee from the group of 5 employees, or from the 55+ age category who becomes redundant). For the second person, look at the highest number after the decimal point, or in the age group consisting of 2 employees. In this case, the second employee who becomes redundant is the employee from the age category 35-44 with the shortest employment. Given the reduction to be achieved, the employee designated second only needs to be declared partially redundant.

Neem de volgende stap

Blijf niet rondlopen met vragen over je situatie. Stel je vraag en krijg persoonlijk antwoord van een ervaren jurist.
Privacy is gewaarborgd.