“How can I prove that I work less than 25 per cent from home?” “I get the feeling that I am being punished because I work in the Netherlands.” “I feel lost in this world of regulations, does anyone know of a good advisor?” The chat messages are tumbling over each other during the information session organised by the UM’s HR department for cross-border workers from Belgium. About 180 people participate in the Zoom session (roughly eighty people Zoomed that same day during the meeting for German cross-border workers, which was a lot calmer by the way) and was completely in English. The language immediately gives rise to the question: why is there not a separate session in Dutch? “It is such a difficult subject matter.” Are there people who don’t speak Dutch, someone writes in the chat. There is a handful of immediate reactions: “Only English.” The questions may be posed in Dutch, says the panel chairwoman of the morning, Maud Engelen from HR.
Many questions
There are questions, lots and lots, especially about personal situations, but the answers by the employees from the Border Information Point, (Grensinfopunt, part of the Maastricht International Center) and later on the Dutch Tax Office, necessarily remain general. Anyone who wants answers that cater for a personal situation, will have to make an appointment (via grenzinfo.eu), is the advice given several times. Or they can use the UM’s special e-mail address (see below).
That latter seems to be working, says Engelen two weeks later. “It is complicated subject matter, we still have a lot of work to do, but we have noticed that employees appreciate receiving a personal answer to their questions.”
Civil servant or not
Can the UM not fight this new regulation, someone asks. No, unfortunately, this concerns European legislation. Why is this law such an issue now, someone else asks? The explanation follows immediately: it has everything to do with the Civil Servants Legal Status Normalisation Act, (WNRA, Wet Normalisering Rechtspositie Ambtenaren), which applies from 1 January 2020. From that moment, UM employees are no longer civil servants, but still work for a government body. That has consequences for their legal status. While a cross-border civil servant comes under Dutch legislation completely, this does not apply to a cross-border worker who is employed by a government body. With all that this entails: anyone whose work is hybrid - 25 per cent or more from home and the rest in the office – will change over to the social security system in his or her home country: health care, old-age pension, unemployment benefits, et cetera.
Until now, the law has had very little impact and that has everything to do with COVID-19, the accompanying enforced working from home, and the temporary agreement on this between countries. It is expected that after the New Year – the beginning of 2022 – things will change. “I will not change over to the Belgian system,” an employee informs her fellow colleagues on Zoom. “That would cost me a lot of money.” How much? That depends on the personal situation, says Engelen when asked.
Key question
Then the key question is, how can you prove that you work less than 25 per cent from home? Ideas pour in during the morning session: keep an Excel sheet with the hours you have worked. That immediately gives rise to the question of who will check that, will the Belgian civil servant believe you at your word? Buy a cup of coffee with your bank card as proof that you were in Maastricht, another suggests. Hack the system, another said. Have a colleague check in for you. Request an “A1 statement with your working pattern” from the Civil Government Service for Social Security in Belgium, someone from Border Information suggests. “This is valid for two years. That way, you don’t need to provide proof that you work less than 25 per cent from home.”
Working from home agreement
“Could the UM not create a form, that would help enormously,” someone asks at the end of the morning. It is being looked into, says Engelen. Two weeks later, her colleague Susan Boltong adds: “There will most likely be a working from home agreement for all employees – how much do you work from home, how much time do you spend at work, which facilities do you use when working from home, et cetera. The Taskforce Future Working @UM is dealing with it. We argue within HR that cross-border workers get priority, so that they have proof for the Belgian and German government bodies.”