NN dismissing temporary workers before July 1

Insurance giant Nationale-Nederlanden (NN) is dismissing its temporary workers in expectation of the new job security law, according to Volkskrant. The law that comes into force July 1 will provide greater job security to flexible workers, temporary employees, third-party hires and freelancers. NN is currently ending contracts with temporary employees hired via agency, according to an internal NN memo leaked to the Volkskrant. “We were promised that we could stay longer if we prematurely switched to another temporary employment,” an NN employee who chose to remain anonymous is said to the newspaper. The allegations against the insurance firm are similar to accusations made against Dutch bank ING. Both firms shared the same parent company, ING Group, until the NN spin-off in 2014. Nationale Nederlanden was part of the ING Group for 13 years. Political pressure and public outcry led to ING offering severance packages to workers laid off in advance of the law change. It led to labour union CNV launching a hotline for prematurely cut workers to lodge complaints. So far, the union says they received about 200 calls to the line. The new law is aimed at reducing job security differences between temporary and permanent employees. Temporary workers are guaranteed a permanent position earlier than under previous legislation. They are also entitled to a severance pay after working in the company for two years. Roughly 1,700 of the 12 thousand Nationale-Nederlanden employees are outside hires. About 750 from that group are temp workers, even as many have spent years at the company, a CNV representative told the paper.