Future amendment to the law. The issue has been debated in Parliament since 2005, but no progress has been made. Employers’ organizations want more flexibility to appeal to the “essential criterion” but unions are opposed to it. Eddy van Heijum explained: “Unions are afraid employers are going to go around the mirror principle which is only based on age and recruitment date, with the essential criterion, on a more subjective, more individual basis.” Indeed, Sacha Meijer, lawyer at the Federation of Dutch Unions (FNV), explained that the essential criterion must remain an exception. “For instance, if a colleague can be trained to reach the same level the employer wants to keep, the criterion doesn’t play. On the contrary, if, in a car firm, an employee speaks Japanese and that this language is useful to understand how to assemble this or this model, then the essential criterion works.” The crisis has made this issue more urgent. The motion voted in Parliament, supported by all major parties, forces Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Piet Hein Donner, to amend the law quickly. “Within a few weeks” hopes Eddy van Heijum, when talks between the Minister, employers and unions are through.
it. Eddy van Heijum explained: “Unions are afraid employers are going to go around the mirror principle which is only based on age and recruitment date, with the essential criterion, on a more subjective, more individual basis.” Indeed, Sacha Meijer, lawyer at the Federation of Dutch Unions (FNV), explained that the essential criterion must remain an exception. “For instance, if a colleague can be trained to reach the same level the employer wants to keep, the criterion doesn’t play. On the co
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