Piper Sport

shopping_LR The latest collective bargaining agreement for the Dutch Fashion and Sports industry (CBA Fashion & Sport Inretail) was effective from 1 July 2012 until 1 October 2013. Recently the parties finally reached a draft agreement on a new CBA Fashion & Sport Inretail, after over a year of negotiations, which final version came online last week. The CBA will run retroactively from 1 July 2015 to 1 July 2016 and the Dutch government most likely will declare this CBA generally binding to the whole sector on very short notice.

Do you have to apply the CBA?

As soon as the CBA is declared generally binding, it will automatically apply to all employment agreements with employees who are employed in the Netherlands, within a company or department of that company, in which mainly or solely fashion and/or sport items and/or shoes and/or paint/similar items are sold to private persons/end users.

Until that moment the CBA only applies to

companies which are a member of the employers’ association “Inretail” which is party at the CBA; and/or

employment agreements in which the CBA Fashion & Sport Inretail was already incorporated.

Important provisions

The CBA is a so-called framework CBA. This implies in short that employers and employees could differ from the provisions in the CBA if the differentiation is in favour of the employee. Furthermore, it is possible to make some arrangement to the contrary in consultation with the works council as long as those arrangements are at least equivalent to the provisions in the CBA.

The main amendments of this CBA – compared to the previous – will be the following:

As per 1 October 2015 the additional compensation for working on Sunday will be 50% (instead of the former 100%). The employee who worked on Sunday for an additional compensation of 100% in the 12 months before 1 October 2015 could apply for a compensation in time and/or salary. The additional compensation for working on a public holiday will remain 100%;

All employees will be entitled to a year-end bonus of 0.25% in December 2015; and

As per 1 October 2015 employees may exclude certain specific days of the week during which they cannot be scheduled. Employees who are employed full-time may exclude one day a week, employees who are employed part-time up to 20 hours a week may exclude two days a week.

To-do-list

Before the CBA is declared generally binding check if you are a member of the employers’ association Inretail; or if you have employment agreements which have the CBA incorporated. If one of the above applies or as soon as the CBA is declared generally binding: Check if all the salaries within your company are equal or above the wage scale. Inform the employees by email about the four important changes mentioned above your company will implement as a result of the new CBA. It is not necessary to incorporate the CBA into your employment contracts, because your company and your employees will automatically be bound by all its provisions.

Source: blogs.dlapiper.com