Be careful while disciplining employees!

The Subdistrict Court in Rotterdam recently rejected the request that an employer had filed to terminate the employment agreement with one of its employees, because the employee had already been disciplined for the same facts. After an article had been published in the newspaper about the salary package of the company´s director, the employee had sent the director an email about his salary. The company´s Supervisory Board, responsible for the director´s remuneration policy, consequently gave the employee a formal warning. This did not stop the employee. Not much later, just before the director´s farewell party, the employee sent an email to all his colleagues in which he seriously criticised the director and in which he shared his aversion against the director’s salary. The employer suspended the employee without pay for two weeks, a disciplinary action provided for in the collective labor agreement ('CLA'). Consequently the employer filed a request with the Subdistrict Court in Rotterdam to terminate the employee’s employment agreement, primarily for culpable acts or omissions (the so-called e-ground). The employee defended himself against the termination request and asked the court to nullify his suspension and to force his employer to reinstate him.