Employment Law
Our employment law practice group is made up of Eunice Bruyninckx and Olga van Beijeren. Eunice and Olga are experienced lawyers, having worked for reputable law firms for 18 and 11 years respectively. They primarily represent large enterprises, particularly in matters involving collective and individual redundancy law, reorganisations, employee participation, collective agreement law, transfer of undertaking, the appointment and dismissal of company directors and equal treatment, but they regularly represent company directors and employees as well.
Eunice and Olga give advice and conduct legal proceedings in these areas of law with an efficient and hands-on approach that is much appreciated by their clients. Their services may also be engaged when a second opinion is required.
Globalisation has caused the nature of employment relations to be increasingly international. As a result of having worked for Anglo-Saxon law firms, Eunice has a wide experience in this field and will just as easily give her advice in English as in Dutch. Olga too has done a great deal of her advisory work in English, which means that you may count on being given first-class advice and support regarding all international employment law issues you are faced with, such as working with expats and cross-border employment.
SUBJECTS
*Request for advice
*Collective bargaining agreements
*Collective dismissal
*Equal treatment
*Harmonisation of employment conditions
*International employment law
*Manifestly unreasonable termination of employment
*Age discrimination
*Participation issues
*Redundancy law
*Works councils
*Termination of an employment contract
*Instant dismissal
*Outsourcing
*Transfer of undertaking
*Reorganisations
*Redundancy plans
*Company directors
*Change of employment conditions
Individual redundancy law:
Olga specializes in employer-employee negotiations on the termination of employment contracts and the subsequent drafting of settlement agreements. Both Eunice and Olga have a great deal of experience in litigation involving termination proceedings and proceedings dealing with manifestly unreasonable termination of employment. They also provide advice and go to court over matters such as instant dismissal and other employment law sanctions.
Reorganisations:
Eunice and Olga are regularly involved in negotiations about redundancy plans and concern themselves with submitting requests for advice to Works Councils with regard to proposed reorganisations. They provide advice on how to notify the unions and negotiate with them, as well as on negotiation clauses in collective agreements and the rules that have to be complied with under the Collective Redundancy (Notification) Act (Wet Melding Collectief Ontslag). They also advise on how to settle the employment contracts of redundant employees that cannot be re-employed.
Participation:
Eunice and Olga are involved in the drafting of requests for advice that are submitted to Works Councils concerning all sorts of proposed decisions that require the prior advice from Works Councils. They may also be approached for conducting proceedings before the sub-district court or the Enterprise Chamber, for drafting applications for consent and for conducting proceedings before the company committee. Eunice and Olga as a rule represent enterprises, but from time to time they also act on behalf of the participation body.
Transfer of undertaking:
Eunice conducts negotiations about and regularly rewrites the social chapter in outsourcing contracts and advises on the question whether a specific transaction/agreement will lead to a transfer of undertaking and the automatic transfer of the workers. An ever-recurring theme is the harmonisation of terms of employment following the transfer of the undertaking.
Collective agreements law:
On behalf of the employers Eunice is regularly involved in collective agreement matters such as the interpretation of collective agreement provisions, disputes about their scope, the binding nature of collective agreements, dispensation and conflicting collective agreements.
Equal treatment:
Eunice frequently publishes articles in the field of equal treatment and on that subject is an annotator for JAR (the journal for employment law case law).
In her practice Eunice gives advice on matters such as age discrimination or the distinction between men and women, for example in relation to the question whether a redundancy plan may distinguish between older and younger workers as far as the severance scheme is concerned.
