Contract
and pay

A collective labour agreement (CLA) is a written agreement laying down agreements on working conditions. Examples include agreements on pay, allowances, overtime pay, working hours, trial periods, notice periods or pensions.

Are you a resident of a European Union (EU) country? Are you from Poland, Bulgaria or Romania, for example? If so, you will not need a permit. Are you from a non-EU country? If so, you will probably need a permit to be able to work in the Netherlands. Read in Dutch or English which work permits you need to be able to work in the Netherlands.

Permanent and temporary contracts are used in the Netherlands. A permanent contract is open-ended and a temporary contract is entered into for an agreed period. Three successive temporary or on-call contracts give rise to a permanent contract of employment. You will also receive a permanent contract if you have had multiple temporary contracts for more than three years.

In addition, there are three kinds of on-call contract: an on-call contract accompanied by a preparatory agreement, a zero-hours contract and a ‘min-max’ contract. Typically, after six months, you will be entitled to a contract for the average number of hours per week that you have worked during those six months. You will have to request such a contract yourself. Please take careful note of this!

After a year, employers are obliged to offer you a contract with a fixed number of hours. This must be done if your contract is still running or if your employer offers you a new contract after a year. You may also opt to continue working on the basis of an on-call contract. This is for you to decide – your employer cannot compel you to do so.

Finally, we also have the temporary employment contract, which only employment agencies may issue. In this case, zero-hours and on-call contracts may run for a 52-week period. After those 52 weeks have elapsed, you may be given a further six contracts within a three-year period and will then be entitled to an open-ended agreement.

A temporary employment clause is a provision in the temporary employment contract that ensures that the contract between the temporary worker and the employment agency will end when the assignment ends. This means that if you are working as a temporary worker with a contract containing the ‘temporary employment clause’ your job might come to an end if the client you are working for decides to discontinue the assignment. In that case, you will be paid only for the hours worked. You may work on the basis of a temporary employment clause for no more than 52 weeks. Thereafter, you must be given a temporary contract, with a fixed number of hours, which must always be paid, even if you can’t work.

Under the law in the Netherlands, your employer may make separate agreements with you on the number of hours you work. You must lay down those agreements in your contract. Make sure you check those agreements in your contract carefully. Your employer may also occasionally ask you to work extra hours, for example, at busy times. You will also be paid for those extra hours. The rule is that you may not work for more than 12 hours in succession. In addition, you may work for no more than 60 hours a week. However, you are not allowed to do that every week. Always consult your manager if you are asked to work more hours. Note: Keep your own records of the number of hours you have worked. That way you will be able to check whether you are being asked to work too many hours and whether you are being paid for the number of hours you have worked.

It contains the agreements you, as employee, make with your employer. The contract of employment is an agreement containing agreements to do with your terms and conditions of employment. They include, for example, agreements on your pay, allowances, overtime pay and working hours. In addition, trade unions will sometimes also make agreements on behalf of employees with employer organisations about pay and working hours, for example. We refer to such agreements as collective labour agreements (CLAs). Your employer must abide by them; your contract will state which CLA covers the contract. Many sectors, agriculture and horticulture or transport, for instance, have mandatory CLAs.

Those rules also apply to Werckpost. There is also a CLA for temporary workers in the Netherlands. In addition, when a temporary agency assigns you to the company where you are to start work, it will give you what is known as confirmation of temporary employment. That confirmation specifies which parts of the CLA or the sectoral regulations of the company where you are to start work also apply to you as a temporary worker. In other words, as a temporary worker, you will be covered by two CLAs.

The salary you receive will depend on the type of work and the number of hours you work in a week. Your specific salary will be mentioned during the first interview with Werckpost. Remember that this is your gross salary. There will be a number of items to be deducted, e.g. tax.

As an employee in the Netherlands, you are entitled to a minimum wage and a minimum amount of holiday pay. That is the law. Werckpost can pay you more than the minimum, but they cannot pay you less. Furthermore, it may not withhold more than 25% from your minimum wage for accommodation. This may be done only with your explicit consent and if your employer has a certificate bearing a quality mark regarding the quality of the accommodation. Werckpost is in possession of those certificates and quality marks.

Other deductions from the minimum wage, including fines or other sums, for example, are prohibited.

Various organisations in the Netherlands monitor Werckpost's compliance with the law concerning your terms and conditions of employment. That includes, for example, wage payment. You can read in English, Spanish, Polish or Romanian about how Werckpost's compliance with the agreements is monitored on the website of the Foundation for Compliance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Temporary Agency Workers (SNCU).

Have you received less pay than agreed in your contract or been paid for fewer hours than you worked? If so, check to make sure that it is not the deductions for accommodation, insurance and transport that make the final amount lower than expected. Is the amount still less than you expected? Contact your coordinator or our accounts department. If there is a problem, we will do our best to resolve it.

Questions about your salary? Contact your coordinator.

Note: If you work for a temporary agency, it is possible that you will be paid only for the hours worked during the first year. Furthermore, you do not decide yourself how many hours per week you can work. As a result, you might have to pay for fixed costs such as rent for your room and your health insurance even though you haven’t worked a single hour that week and will therefore receive no pay. This will be the case if you have a temporary employment contract with a 'temporary employment clause’ or a temporary contract containing an ‘exclusion of the obligation to continue to pay wages’ clause. This should be set out in your contract.

If you do not work through a temporary agency, it is also possible that you will be given a zero-hours contract for six months, or an on-call contract. In that case, you will also be paid only for the hours worked and you will often have no say as regards the number of hours you can work per week.

At Werckpost, you will receive a payslip weekly by email and in your Plan4Flex environment. You will receive an annual income statement for the past year worked at the end of the year.

Your payslip will show your gross and net pay and the taxes and contributions withheld by your employer, e.g. your wage tax. You will also see how many hours you worked and the period for which you are being paid, as well as allowances for overtime, for instance, and expense allowances on your payslip. Deductions from your pay for accommodation and health insurance should also appear on your payslip. Keep your payslips in a safe place so that you can check them if you need to.

In the following video we explain clearly what our payslips/salary slips look like and what all the components mean: salary slip

You will receive an annual income statement from Werckpost at the beginning of every new year. This is in addition to the monthly payslips. The annual income statement will state what you earned over the previous year. Keep your annual income statement in a safe place as you will need it for your tax return in the Netherlands.