Work and care framework bill proposes family care leave

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New draft legislation will - if enacted - grant Dutch employees the right to a maximum of 10 days' paid leave to care for an ill member of their immediate family. The proposal forms part of a groundbreaking new "work and care" Act, also covering adoption leave, long-term unpaid family care leave and part-time employment, presented by state secretary Annelies Verstand-Bogaert of the Ministry of Social Affairs in February 1999.

In February 1999, state secretary Annelies Verstand-Bogaert of the Ministry of Social Affairs proposed a new Work and Care Framework Act (Kaderwet Arbeid en Zorg), which includes a right for employees to take a maximum of 10 days' paid leave a year to care for an ill member of their immediate family, alongside provisions on four weeks' paid adoption leave, long-term unpaid family care leave and part-time employment. The aim is to cluster all existing forms of leave, as well as the proposed new regulations, into a single Act. The new legislation - if passed - would serve to make it simpler to combine work and caring and thus enable employees to do more of both.

This framework bill is the government's answer to the proposals on part-time employment made by the GroenLinks opposition party, which were rejected in the Upper House of parliament in early 1998 (NL9803164F). These proposals would have granted employees the individual right to flexible working hours, in consultation with employers. The framework bill also incorporates the care-related proposals of the opposition Christian Democrats (CDA). Although the cabinet was due to readdress the state secretary's proposals in February 1999, the social partners and other parties will have an opportunity to react at a future date.

Certain sections of the bill are expected to provoke heated debate. The state secretary will face cabinet criticism regarding her proposal to reduce the required time which lone parents (receiving social security benefits) of children aged five to 12 years must spend seeking work. In addition, she wishes to impose an obligation to seek part-time employment on lone parents of children below the age of five. Her proposal to offer employees the chance to accrue leave pay, for which they would be allowed to set aside 10% of their gross salary, will most likely ruffle feathers in employer circles. Similarly, the proposed right to 10 days' paid family care leave a year is expected to provoke loud protests from employers, which would prefer to make arrangements of this nature themselves using existing channels of managerial authority - without such rights being awarded to employees.