As an employee, you have a say in how things are arranged or decided within the organisation. The Works Council Act (WOR) lays down how this happens, for example through a PVT, (joint) Works Council, OC, COR or GOR. But what do all these abbreviations actually mean? Here is a brief explanation.
(almost every link in this text leads to the specific articles of the Dutch WOR on our website, for the translated articles please see the English WOR translated by the SER)
– klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie van deze tekst –
employee participation
The Dutch Works Councils Act (or WOR in Dutch) is a law that describes how organisations are obliged to organise employee participation in their organisation. These are rules with which every organisation in the Netherlands must comply. The number of employees and the organisation’s design determine how and in which form the employee participation is organised by law.
when should there be employee participation?
In organisations of 10 employees or more, employee participation takes the form of an employee representative body (In Dutch ‘PVT’ which is an abbreviation of ‘Personeelsvertegenwoordiging’). In organisations with 50 employees or more, employee participation takes place in the form of a Works Council (in Dutch ‘OR’ which is an abbreviation of ‘ondernemingsraad’).
The responsibility for setting up a PVT or Works Council lies with the management board (or, as it is called in the WOR, the Bestuurder (Director)). However, this requires the employees to have at least some interest to take part in a PVT or Works Council. The board must do its best, as stated in the WOR, to encourage employees to participate in the Works Council.
The board must take the initiative to set up a Works Council if a group of employees specifically requests it. In practice, you often notice that the board immediately asks such a group to organise the (first) Works Council elections (Dutch).
Therefore, we present this overview of the abbreviations for the forms of participation in organisations; each term is complete with the conditions/composition and organisation/rights and powers.
confusing? we can imagine…
In this article, we have tried to provide clarity. However, there are many different possibilities in practice. Likely, the situations we have described here will probably not exactly match your organisation or your Works Council.
We would be happy to visit you so that we can offer our help and explain matters further. Invite us over for a cup of coffee, and we will discuss how we can best support you.
* These examples count all employees, regardless of the number of hours they work
Note: Please note that we are a Dutch organisation and that all our information is originally composed in Dutch. For the benefit of our English-speaking customers we have translated some of our online information. We are still in the process of translating even more of our information. It could therefore be that you will come across Dutch pages on CT2.nl. Please contact us if you would like more information.