De cao-ontslagcommissie: welke afwijkende selectiecriteria worden in de praktijk gehanteerd en is er een (nieuwe) toekomst voor de ontslagcommissie?

An employer must ask the UWV (Dutch labour agency) for prior authorization for a dismissal for economic reasons. In 2015, the possibility was introduced to replace this consent of the UWV with the consent of a redundancy committee set up by collective agreement. The redundancy committee may apply its own selection criteria which differ from the selection criteria set out in statutory redundancy law, such as the reflection principle. In this article, Johan Zwemmer and Milou Peels discuss which different selection criteria are currently applied by existing redundancy committees. They also look at the future of the redundancy committee. At the moment, very little use is made of this. Is there perhaps a new future for the redundancy committee following the advice of the Borstlap Commission to allow the employer to adjust the employee's working hours if economic conditions give rise to this? The current severe economic times resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic should already give social partners the reason to start working on this advice. The redundancy committee may have a role to play in this.