29 November 2019

The Civil Servants (Normalisation of Legal Status) Act (WNRA) will come into force on 1 January 2020. Under this Act, in your role as an employee of the university, you will be covered by the same legal provisions as employees in the private sector. Your current appointment to your role will be converted into an employment contract; a letter will be sent to your home address in December 2019 to confirm this transition.

No change to employment conditions

In practice, you will notice little difference. Your employment conditions, both primary and secondary, will stay the same. As all agreements, decisions and commitments relating to your current appointment will be included verbatim in the new employment contract, there will be no change to aspects such as your salary or annual leave.

What will change

The main changes are as follows:

• Your appointment will be converted into an employment contract. In practice, there is little significant difference between an appointment and an employment contract; for more information, please check the WNRA page.
• You will no longer be treated as a public servant.
• The expiry period of your annual leave hours will change.
• The dismissal procedure
  Following the change, in order to dismiss a person employed on a permanent employment contract, the university will need either a permit from the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen, UWV) or a ruling by the relevant district judge. Under the previous situation, the employee had to submit an objection and appeal following dismissal.