Senate rejects bill from home working law

ANPEan employee works from home

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 15:29

The Senate has rejected a bill for the new working from home law. The ‘Work where you want’ law would make it easier for employees to make agreements about working from home.

During a debate on September 12, most groups were in favor of the proposal, but the necessity of the law was doubted. The additional pressure for employers to ensure that employees’ wishes can be met also raised objections.

It was anticipated that the law would encounter more resistance in the Senate, because the relations there are different than in the House of Representatives. For example, the party with the most seats, the BBB, had already announced that it would vote against the law.

In today’s vote, the factions of OPNL, GroenLinks-PvdA, D66, CDA, Volt, SP, PvdD and the Christian Union voted in favor of the bill. SGP, JA21, FVD, PVV, VVD, BBB and 50Plus voted against the new law. This means that the bill was rejected by a small majority.

If the law had been passed, employers would not have been able to simply reject a request to work from home. On the basis of ‘reasonableness and fairness’, requests about working from home are then looked at in the same way as wishes to work more or less.

Milder variant

The initiative law of GroenLinks and D66 was adopted on July 5 with a large majority of 125 votes in the House of Representatives. Only the PVV, FVD and Groep Van Haga voted against.

The law was a milder variant for employers than an earlier proposal, under which employers could only reject requests if there were ‘compelling business interests’.

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