Unjustified salary penalty

Compensation after unjustified salary penalty

The waiting period of 104 weeks

As an employer you have the obligation to still pay salary for 104 weeks for your employees unfit to work. During that time you can’t dismiss the employee in principle and are you obliged to make sufficient effort for reintegration of the employee. The aim must still namely be that the employee can perform more work activities, in first instance at your company, but when that doesn’t work at other companies.

Review reintegration efforts

After 104 weeks the UWV will judge your reintegration efforts. If that reveals that you as the employer haven’t made enough effort to reintegrate your employee, you can be sanctioned by the UWV.

The penalty

This penalty can be that for a maximum of 52 weeks extra you still need to pay the salary. Thus if that is the case you as employer still pay the salary for three years. The dismissal prohibition due to illness also stays intact during that period. You need to 

continue the reintegration and are also burdened with the obligation to improve the integration of the employee in fitting labour in your company of in the company of a different employer.

Objection and appeal

You can object and file appeal against the decision of the UWV to give you this salary penalty. Eventually it may turn out that you as employer has wrongly been given a salary penalty. If this is the case you suffer damage caused by an error of the UWV.

Liability UWV for unjustified salary penalty?

Out of recent jurisprudence it seems that you can address the UWV for an unjustified salary penalty and appeal to compensation. To the extent that you as an employer have made payments (as demonstrated afterwards) in the third year of sickness where you were not obliged to on grounds of the employment agreement, or you made costs which were flowing out of your reintegration obligations, you can recover these costs on the UWV.

Concluding

Do you have a similar situation as an employer, have you been sanctioned with a salary penalty and do you wish to object or has it been shown that the salary penalty was unjustified and did you suffer damages as a result to that penalty which you want to recover from the UWV? Please contact mr. Suzanne van Dijsseldonk and she will tell you what the possibilities are.