New Dutch gov't advised to bundle all paid leave in one, simplified law

The Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) advised the new Cabinet to create a new law that bundles all the current leave arrangements. According to the Council, the current leave system has been expanded and adjusted so much in the past years that it is extremely complex, and the funding for it is uncertain. The new law should also simplify the current arrangements and bring the financing more in balance.

“Leave that is arranged simply and clearly results in less hassle and administrative burden for the employer and reduces the obstacles to employees taking leave,” the SER said. “It can further promote employee performance and motivation and reduce absenteeism due to illness.”

The SER wants the new Social Leave Act to have three pillars - care for children, care for loved ones, and personal leave. Care for children includes maternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave, and foster care leave. “The attractive thing about bringing these schemes together is that it increases implementation for employers and simplicity for employees,” the SER said.

Care for loved ones would cover the current short-term and long-term care leave and also offer options for taking leave for informal care. The aging population means that more and more workers will have to pick up informal care tasks at some point, so it is crucial to properly arrange and facilitate this type of leave quickly, the SER said. “Structural solutions must be found for structural situations of informal care so that informal caregivers do not have to fall back on reporting sick or taking statutory holiday entitlements.”

The personal leave pillar is to give employees more options to combine working with learning or caring. “Grief deserves a place in this pillar of personal leave.” The SER recommended adding grief leave and emergency leave to this pillar but arranging exactly how it works decentrally - through talks between trade unions and employers - so that there is room for customization.

The SER also wants to set a consultation requirement in the statutory parental leave regulations to ensure that employers and employees discuss the duration and method of the leave ahead of time. That should give both parties more control over the situation.

It also wants the funding of leave to be more balanced “through a larger and more recognizable contribution from the government.” the SER said. “In the current design of paid leave, employers and to some extent also employees themselves bear the burden of paid maternity and parental leave, while the contribution from the government is limited,” the SER said as an example. “That is disproportionate to the maro social benefits that these forms of leave have.”