Employee rights: Permanent contract or 18 hours?

Questioner

Is my employee entitled to a permanent 24-hour contract? Facts: - fixed-term contract 18 hours, incl. Termination in advance. end date reached. - already worked 24 hours a day for 9 months and received pay. - after end date not immediately given permanent contract due to doubt extension for business economic reasons. Employee did still work and was paid that month for 24 hours. - now the contract has been extended to the original 18 hours, last month the employee only worked 18 hours per week (contractual times). Employee believes she is within her rights to demand a 24-hour contract, employer no longer has the financial means to give employee 24 hours. Employee calls in sick. The employer's company is in poor financial shape and can no longer keep the employee in service. Dismissal must be requested from the UWV. Question: Who has which rights now?

Lawyer

There are two things you need to distinguish from each other. Firstly, the duration of the contracts and secondly, the number of hours to be worked. Based on your data, the maximum number of months of 24 has not been exceeded by multiple temporary contracts. On that basis, there is therefore no right to a permanent contract. Because the employee has worked an average of 24 hours per week in the past 3 months, there may be a legal presumption that an employment contract for 24 hours has been created. On the other hand, she has worked 18 hours again in the past month. This refutes the legal presumption. So you do not have to give a 24-hour contract. You can request dismissal when the employee returns to work.