The American Uber circumvented the Dutch dismissal rules in the dismissal of employees at its international headquarters in Amsterdam. That appears from research from NRC. In May, the taxi app decided to lay off a quarter of the 27.000 employees worldwide, due to sharply reduced sales due to the corona virus. For the affected employees, the company applied for a collective application for dismissal from the UWV. Uber put pressure on staff in Amsterdam to agree to dismissal. 

The works council was also not informed in time. Before the UWV could offer a solution, almost all employees had already signed for dismissal in exchange for financial compensation. That went under high pressure, Uber employees say.

dismissal rules are fully applied

NRC spoke for this article expanded with nine (former) employees of Uber, who only wanted to cooperate on condition of anonymity. Uber employees are contractually prohibited from speaking to the press without permission. Two employees who wanted to tell their story in all openness decided to withdraw at the last minute.

NRC was also given access to internal e-mail traffic from Uber, documents from the works council and communication between Uber and the benefits agency UWV with regard to the rounds of dismissal at the international head office in Amsterdam. NRC also saw evidence (e-mails, screenshots and other documents) that substantiate the personal stories of the interviewees.

"Everything had to be done very quickly at Uber," FNV told NRC. “On day 1 it was announced in America, on day 7 everything had to be arranged in the Netherlands. Settlement agreements have been signed under time pressure and without proper information. Uber just pushed this through. ”

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