Lodging a complaint about an ABU member

ABU members are expected to provide high-quality services and be reliable. In order to ensure that our members maintain our standards in this regard, temp agencies and payroll organisations affiliated with the ABU are regularly subjected to evaluation and are expected to comply with our Code of Conduct. Dutch- and English-language versions of our Code of Conduct can be found here. Furthermore, ABU members that serve as employment intermediaries for foreign workers are subject to the Fair Employment for Labour Migrants Code of Practice.

In the unlikely event that something goes wrong anyway and you are unable to remedy the situation amicably, or in the event that the complaints you have lodged with the ABU member concerned are falling on deaf ears, you can report the matter to the ABU as follows.

Prospective employees, temporary workers and temporary workers who work for an ABU-affiliated temp agency, as well as clients who have hired an ABU-affiliated temp agency’s or payroll organisation’s worker(s). Furthermore, ABU members may file a report about another ABU member. If you are unsure whether a temp agency or payroll organisation is an ABU member, please consult the Register of Members.

If you do not want to report an ABU member, but rather have a question you’d like to have answered (for instance, about the Collective Labour Agreement for Temporary Agency Workers), you can find a great deal of information on this subject on the Foundation for Compliance with the CLA for Temporary Agency Workers in the Netherlands’s website.

What to do if the agency or organisation about which you wish to lodge a complaint is not an ABU member. If you wish to report an (alleged) failure to comply with the CLA for Temporary Agency Workers, please contact the Foundation for Compliance with the CLA for Temporary Agency Workers in the Netherlands at www.sncu.nl.

If you wish to report an occupational accident or unsafe working conditions, please contact the Labour Inspectorate’s Unscrupulous Temp Agencies Hotline www.nlarbeidsinspectie.nl.

In order to be able to handle your complaint properly, we will need certain information from you. It goes without saying that we will treat the information with which you provide us confidentially. For instance, if we have to contact the ABU member concerned, we will only do so in consultation with yourself.

We will take the following steps to try and resolve the matter:

First you and your contact person at the temp agency or payroll organisation will try to arrive at a solution, or alternatively, you will file a complaint as explained in the temp agency’s complaints procedure.
If you are unable to settle the matter amicably, or if you feel that your grievances are not being addressed, please report the matter to the ABU. You can only report the matter if the agency or organisation concerned is an ABU member. If you are unsure whether the agency or organisation is ABU-affiliated, please consult the Register of Members. The ABU will try and help you settle the matter by means of conciliation, which involves bringing the parties together and clearing things up as necessary.
If the ABU’s conciliation procedure is unsuccessful, the parties can take their case to an independent arbitration tribunal as a last resort. This tribunal has the competence to issue binding decisions with regard to compliance with the ABU’s Code of Conduct. If the dispute concerns compliance with the CLA for Temporary Agency Workers, it must be brought before a special Dispute Resolution Committee.