Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch Universities

COLLECTIVE LABOUR AGREEMENT (CAO) OF DUTCH UNIVERSITIES

1 SEPTEMBER 2007 TO 1 MARCH 2010

Colophon

Title: Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch universities, 1 September 2007 to 1 March 2010

The Hague: VSNU, 2008 (132 pages including appendices)

ISBN 978-90-5588-122-2

Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU)

Lange Houtstraat 2

P.O. Box 13739

2501 ES The Hague

T 0031 (70) 302 14 00

F 0031 (70) 302 14 95

E post@vsnu.nl

www.vsnu.nl

Design: www.kruit.nl

Printing: www.sterprint.nl

Photography: University of Leiden, Karel Oosting, ... (to be supplied by designer)

© 2008: VSNU

This publication has been produced with the utmost care. Even so, the authors, editors and publisher disclaim all liability for any errors and inaccuracies.

Save for the exceptions provided for in the 1912 Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a database or retrieval system, or published in any form, without prior permission from the VSNU.

CAO booklets are available from the VSNU.

The texts of the collective agreement and of the corresponding regulations, and the references to current websites, can also be found on the VSNU website (www.vsnu.nl).

This translation of the collective labour agreement 2007-2010 for the Dutch Universities is meant as a service to non-Dutch speaking employees of said universities. However, in case of a difference of interpretation, this translation cannot be used for legal purposes. In those cases the Dutch text of the CAO Nederlandse Universiteiten 1 september 2007 tot 1 maart 2010 is binding.

Appendix J Miscellaneous

Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities, 1 September 2007 to 1 March 2010

Parties to and nature of the collective agreement (CAO)

The parties to this collective labour agreement are:

The Association of Cooperating Dutch Universities, acting in its capacity as an association on behalf of the universities, hereinafter referred to as VSNU,

and

the employee organisations listed below:

ABVAKABO FNV : Trade union affiliated with the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions (FNV);

AC/FBZ : Civil Servants’ Centre/General Federation of Professional Organisations in the Care Sector and related academic education and research;

CNV Publieke Zaak : CNV union for the government, the care sector and privatised

governmental institutions;

CMHF : Federation for Intermediate and Senior Staff in government, education, private industry and institutions;

all acting in their capacity as associations exercising the full legal rights of staff.

The parties hereby declare that they have entered into a collective agreement on employment conditions, the text and the appendices of which read as given below:

The collective agreement (CAO) of Dutch Universities is intended to implement the provisions in Article 4.5 of the Higher Education and Academic Research Act (WHW), insofar as agreed at the branch of industry level and it lays down the regulations on employment conditions for all Dutch universities, and applies to special universities as a collective labour agreement within the meaning of the Collective Labour Agreement Act.

This collective agreement is a standard collective agreement explicitly indicating when and to which extent additional interpretations may be given at institutional level.

Preamble

1. Career development of academic staff

a. Postdocs

Employees working as postdocs on the basis of 0.5 FTE or more will in 2008 and 2009 be entitled to a non‑recurring, personal budget of 1000 euros a year. The total budget of 2000 euros can also be granted in one go. By making additional financial resources available, parties make it possible for postdocs to enhance their employability in the internal and external labour market in a sustainable way and thereby generate an impulse for career formation and personal development. Since the position of postdoc is not defined in UFO as such, the basic assumption in this regard is that a postdoc is a member of staff with a PhD in temporary employment working, in terms of job profile, as a researcher at level 3 or 4. Agreements will be made between the postdoc and the employer during the yearly interview with regard to the allocation of the budget.

b. Function based contracts

By definition, academic members of staff benefit from working in a results‑oriented way. Regulations concerning working hours and accounting for leave are therefore less meaningful to them. For this reason, parties to the collective agreement have agreed to experiment during this agreement period with function based contracts concluded between the employer and the employee by mutual agreement. This voluntary condition also applies to academic staff who enter employment in future.

When a function based contract is concluded, leave days shall be deemed to have been taken up at the end of the calendar year. Collective agreement Articles based on time and relating to terms of employment, including that of the individual choices model, will not apply. A function based contract must, however, include agreements about sabbatical leave.

The experiment will continue until the end of the collective agreement’s term and will be evaluated before the end of that term. The parties to the collective agreement shall take work pressure, the capacity of senior staff to deal with those pressures, part‑time working into account during this evaluation.

c. Tenure track

To an increasing degree, the careers of young academic staff at Dutch Universities are based on tenure track policy. Because this policy must primarily be formulated at the level of the institution itself, with due consideration being given to the specific circumstances and the profile of the institution or faculty concerned, the parties to the collective agreement agreed to include an outline framework for tenure track in the collective agreement.

2. Staffing policy oriented towards stage of life

The parties shall agree on a representative study into a staffing policy oriented towards stage of life based on the principle that employees must be able to remain effectively and healthily at work in each stage of life. The aim of the study is to develop a new staffing policy oriented towards stage of life before the end of the collective agreement’s term that will replace the current age‑based schemes such as the 60+ scheme, the age days and the general senior staff scheme. This must be supported by custom work. In developing the new policy, the financial capacity required by the current policy is in any case available and a link will be sought with the ABP pension scheme and the current collective agreement framework for career policy. Use will also be made of (inter)national research into the best options and instruments for employers and employees to promote career development and mobility (‘active aging’). Instruments developed by employers’ organisations may also be used in this regard. The study will be completed before 1 June 2009.

3. Illness and dismissal

a. Continued payment of wages during the first and second year of illness

For employees who become ill on or after the first of January 2008, 100% of wages will continue to be paid for the first 9 months of illness followed by 76% of wages for the 15 months thereafter.

b. Continued payment of wages in the case of less than 35% occupational disability

For the category of employees whose occupational disability is less than 35%, the agreement concluded at the introduction of the Work and Income (Ability to Work) Act (WIA) was that the contracts of employment of these employees would remain in force. The parties to the collective agreement agree that, following the period of continued wage payment, employees who are less than 35% occupationally disabled according to the WIA decision will be paid 100% of hours worked in the position which they occupy at that time. 80% of the original remuneration will be paid for the hours not worked, to a minimum of 90% of the original remuneration in total.

This category of employees can be internally transferred to another job with a lower salary scale without prior dismissal. The above applies to employees for whom the continued payment of wages due to illness ends on or after 1 January 2008.

Chapter 1 General clauses

Section 1 Definitions and obligations

Article 1.1 Definitions and abbreviations

v. Salary number: an indication, consisting of a number, which is given before a salary in a salary grade;

w. Maximum salary: the highest amount in a salary grade;

x. Remuneration: the sum of the salary and the bonuses the employee is entitled to pursuant to the provisions in Articles 3.13, paragraph 2, 3.14, 3.15, 3.18, or the bonus pursuant to the provisions in Articles 3.16, 3.25 to 3.27 unless it is established in advance that the bonus is granted for less than one year;

y. Position: the compilation of duties to be performed by the employee pursuant to and in accordance with what he has been assigned to do by the employer;

z. Academic staff (wp): all members of staff whose respective jobs are classified under the Education and Research job family of the job classification system;

aa. Doctoral candidate: staff in the employment of the university whose job is classified in the doctoral candidate job profile in the Education and Research job family of the job classification system;

bb. Support and management staff (obp): members of staff not belonging to the academic staff category, including student assistants;

cc. Medical specialist: a doctor of medicine who, according to the register of the Specialists’ Registration Commission, is recognised as a specialist in the field of medicine indicated therein;

dd. Two-Tier Entity Scheme: the scheme under Article 9.51 of the Higher Education and Academic Research Act, Bulletin of Acts & Decrees 1997, 117;

ee. CAO: the collective agreement of the Dutch Universities;

ff. WAO: Occupational Disability Insurance Act;

gg. WHW: Higher Education and Academic Research Act;

hh. WNU: Netherlands Universities Unemployment Scheme (formerly the Unemployment Act for Teaching and Research Staff [BWOO], as phrased on 16 December 1999);

ii. BWNU: Unemployment Scheme of the Dutch Universities Exceeding the Statutory Minimum;

jj. ZANU: Sickness and Disability Scheme of Dutch Universities (formerly BZAOO [Sickness and Occupational Disability Act for Teaching and Research Staff], as phrased on 16 December 1999);

kk. ZW: Sickness Benefits Act:

ll. WIA: Employment Work and Income (Ability to Work) Act;

mm. No longer applicable;

nn. WW: Unemployment Act;

oo. REA Act: Disability (Reintegration) Act;

pp. BW: Dutch Civil Code;

qq. UWV: Employed Person’s Insurance Administration Agency;

rr. SUWI: Work and Income (Implementation Structure) Act.

Article 1.2 Authority of the employer