The purpose of the EU Directive is to improve working conditions by promoting more transparent and predictable employment while ensuring labour market adaptability.

Member States shall take the necessary measures to comply with the Directive by 1 August 2022.

The first version of the Dutch bill was submitted to the House of Representatives on 11 November 2021 and contains four main provisions:

1. the extension of the employer’s information obligation: Employers will need to expand their provision of information to new employees, unless regulated in the collective labour agreement, in the employment contract or in a personnel handbook. Within one week after the start of employment, an employer will have to inform its new employee in writing about the term (or end date) of the employment agreement, the duration and conditions of the trial period, the usual place of work, the starting salary and its components, the normal working hours and break times and the arrangements regarding overtime, as well as the salary for overtime. Employees must be also informed about entitlement to paid leave, the employer’s training policy and the procedure and requirements in the event of termination and dismissal. This information must be provided, on request, also to employees who are already in employment at the time the new law takes effect, within one month of the employee's request.
2. employer’s obligations with regard to mandatory training and study cost clauses: according to the Bill, if the employer is required to provide training to the employee, the employer must, under certain circumstances, offer the training free of charge (i.e. reimburse the training itself, travel expenses and/or textbooks), as far as possible, conduct the training during working hours and register the training as working time. Moreover, for these particular training programs, it is no longer possible to agree with the employee on a study-costs clause with a repayment arrangement. Any clause on the basis of which the costs for mandatory training are payable by the employee (directly or via set-off) shall be null and void. These provisions apply only to ‘mandatory training’, defined in the Directive as training which employers are obliged to offer to employee by Union or national law or by collective agreements.
3. the restriction on the ban on ancillary activities: The Bill stipulates that any clause that bans or restricts an employee from performing ancillary activities outside its regular working hours is null and void, unless the ban can be justified on the basis of an objective reason (for example, health and safety, the protection of business confidentiality, the integrity of the public service and the avoidance of conflicts of interests) or due to a statutory provision. It is important for employers to consider that, from 1 August 2022, they will have to provide clear reasons for using the ancillary activities clause.
4. the amendment of the Flexible Working Act (Wet flexibel werken – the FWA): employees whose work pattern is entirely or mostly unpredictable (on-call workers, employees with a min-max contract, but also employees with a fixed-hour contract who are flexibly scheduled) will be able to file a request with their employer for a form of employment with more predictable and secure working conditions and be informed by the employer on which days and hours they can be scheduled to work. If an employee is scheduled outside of these so-called reference hours or days, he or she may refuse to work.

The Bill does not contain any transitional provisions, so it is important that employers take measures to comply with the new legislation before it enters into force on 1 August 2022.