A committee of district court judges is preparing its own revision of court-determined redundancy payments, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

According to anonymous sources, the revision will lead to employers paying out substantially lower compensation when firing some categories of staff.
At the moment people who lose their jobs are paid compensation according to a formula worked out in the courts and known as the ‘kantonrechersformule‘. Under this system, employers are usually given one month’s salary for each year worked when they leave. People over 40 get 18 months per year and and those over 50 get two years.
A commission set up by the court for the judiciary is now looking at a so-called ‘green variation’, says the FD, whereby the over-50s employed for a short period would be given just one month’s salary.
The commission is also discussing the position of the under-40s, who often quickly find a new job at a higher salary. Spokeswoman Monetta Ulrici told the paper that in these cases the need for compensation is ‘nonsense’. She denied this will lead to the scrapping of compensation for the under-35s.
Other matters being looked at by the commission are the definition of ‘salary’ which currently includes the 13th month paid to many workers and shift bonuses but not a company car.
Ulrici told the FD that the commission’s evaluation is independent of government plans to reform redundancy law which had to be abandoned last year because the three governing parties could not agree. ‘Judges feel that in some areas the current redundancy formula falls short,’ she said.
Employers organisations, who want to see redundancy payouts reduced, said they would wait for the judges’ recommendations with interest.