On the other hand, companies in the Netherlands can do things
to their employees that are totally unheard of in the USA.
I'm currently working for my fifth employer since 1996; I was
twice employed by a US company, and now I have my third Dutch
employer. Only once I left because I wanted, the other three
times all had to do with lay offs due to economic reasons.
Twice I worked for a company that ran out of money, and wasn't
able to pay its employees anymore. First it happened while I
did a programming job in NYC. I had only worked there for 10
weeks (after waiting 7 months without work or pay before the
INS was ready to process my papers and give me a working visa). They ran out of money, and had to let most of the programmers go. They give me the option to work with virtually no pay, and if they would get investors within
two months, they would backpay me. I declined and left, but
I got paid for all days I worked - we parted without hard
feelings.
But not so in the Netherlands! After returning from the USA,
I got a job as a sysadmin. After working there for almost
six months, there was suddenly an all-employee meeting on
the last day of the month (a Friday), where they announced
that on the next Monday we would either be bought by another
company, or declare bankruptcy. And BTW, the salaries of the
previous month weren't paid, and there was no money to pay
us. However, we were supposed to come in on Monday and work.
[1]
On Monday the announcement was delayed till Tuesday, and on
Tuesday it was announced we were being bought by another
company. If, when and how the salaries of the previous month
were going to be paid wasn't made clear - every few hours
there was a different story. Two co-workers and I got ourselves some legal advice; we thought that in the Netherlands, employees are protected. Not so. Apparently, the law in the Netherlands is that if a company claims not
to have money to pay salaries, then they don't have to pay.
And if you as an employee decide to not work, than that's a
refusal to work, and they can even sue you for damages. Your
only legal option is to file for bankruptcy - if the company
goes bankrupt, you are garanteed to get your money, eventually.
The story ended the next day. After a meeting with the vice-president, who managed to convince most of the people
with yet another story on how the salaries were going to be
paid and acting very emotionally (she left at one moment,
supposedly because she was crying), I called the head of
the HR department, and told him I wanted to speak to him right away. I told him I had enough of it, that I no longer
wanted to work there, and that I wanted to part with good
terms, including a writing I would get my salary of the
previous month, or otherwise I would go find myself a lawyer
that afternoon and file for bankruptcy (despite the vice-president saying that if we'd go bankrupt, we'd all be
out of a job - that impressed most of the people without
much experience or education, but for me it was "been there,
done that, didn't get the T-shirt, but have resume"). 45 minutes later, I
left the building, only coming back once, to return the
laptop, phone and car.
What I'm trying to say is that there's a lot more to be said
about employee's rights than "US bad, Europe good". I rather
lose my job US-style than Europe-style.
[1]Not that I worked that Monday. I was present
in the office, but I was on IRC, reading Usenet, playing my
MUD, etc. It highly annoyed some of my co-workers who asked
me to do things. Not untill I get my salary I replied. "But I promised the customer". Did you already
explain them our situation? Which of course they didn't
want to do, and that was usually the end of the discussion.
Abigail | [reply] [d/l] [select] |