An on-call contract is an employment contract in which the volume of work is not fixed, or in which there is no right to pay where no work is performed. Zero-hours contracts and minimum-maximum contracts are the best known forms.
Legal basis
Article 7:628a of the Dutch Civil Code contains the rules. The employer must call the employee in at least four days in advance, in writing or electronically; a later call means the employee need not attend. If the employer withdraws the call or changes the hours within those four days, the employee retains the right to pay for the original call. Paragraph 5 requires the employer, after twelve months, to make a written offer of a fixed number of hours equal to the average over the preceding twelve months. If no offer is made, paragraph 8 gives the employee the right to pay for those hours anyway. A collective agreement may shorten the call period to 24 hours for roles that require it.
How it works in practice
The annual offer obligation is the most important requirement and the one most often missed. The offer must be made actively, at the latest within one month after the twelve months have elapsed, and take effect no later than two months after that. The employee may decline, in which case the clock starts again. On-call workers also benefit from a shorter notice period of four days as long as the offer obligation has not been met.
Where it goes wrong
Employers make the offer orally or not at all, and are confronted years later with a claim for the difference in salary. A second error is withdrawing rosters within four days without paying. Third, there is a persistent misconception that an on-call worker must always attend; that duty exists only where the call was timely and correct.
Related terms
The on-call contract connects to the fixed-term contract, the chain rule and payrolling.
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