Employers want more flexibility on working conditions during crises
Working conditions need to also accommodate unprecedented conditions brought on by crises like the coronavirus pandemic, according to employers' associations MKB-Nederland, VNO-NCW, and AWVN. Employers want more flexibility when it comes to working hours, job location, employee function and loan agreements.
“Flexibility is the vaccine for companies,” MKB-Nederland, VNO-NCW and AWVN said to news wire ANP. The associations do not expect more stability this year than in 2020 when the pandemic broke out. The want to ensure that work regulations do not stand in the way of finding the best possible solution.
“Parts of the collective labor agreements can seem so rigid that organizations have trouble dealing with the great uncertainty and devastating blows of the coronavirus crisis”, the associations said. Agreements surrounding the work schedule, travel time and travel expenses have to be adjusted to work-from-home orders, employers say.
Employers emphasized that some companies are having a harder time than others during the coronavirus crisis. They added that the support packages provided by the government sometimes overlook the underlying problems some businesses face.
