How far does a large employer's duty to reintegrate during illness go?

On March 22, 2017, the Central Appeals Council ruled on a wrongfully imposed wage penalty because a large employer allegedly failed to fulfill its reintegration obligation. There were discussions between the UWV and the employer, among other things, about whether more could be required of the employer as a large company with regard to reintegration than could be required of a small employer.

The UWV found that the business owner should have conducted surveys of all 23 establishments for all positions encountered, so that reemployment opportunities could be examined. The UWV did not find it sufficient that the employer had looked at all the jobs, but only of those that were graded one or two levels higher or lower than the employee's original job, the labor expert had explicitly recorded in a report why those jobs were not suitable. The Central Appeals Council ruled as follows: "The fact that this is a large logistics company with 23 branches does not automatically mean that the number of positions that can be considered to reintegrate the employee is very large." At the hearing, the Board also informed that the submission of hundreds of pages of jobs and job descriptions was not found reasonable. The report that had been prepared was found sufficient.

Additional occupational health report after wage penalty

Another aspect of the ruling is also important. The UWV imposed a wage penalty, because the UWV found that the reintegration efforts had been insufficient. The employer disagreed and submitted an additional expert report from an external consultant to further substantiate its position that no suitable work was available. The UWV did not want to take that report into consideration when assessing the objection and appeal, because the report had been drawn up after the imposition of the wage sanction. Although the report in question had been drawn up after the wage sanction and also included information from after that period, according to the Central Appeals Council it could still be included in the assessment of the employer's reintegration activities.

In summary, it can be interesting to have an external expert assess the reintegration efforts if the UWV wrongfully imposed a wage penalty. The UWV must take that report into account.