Legal: can my employer suddenly change the break times?
A school director who decides in the middle of the year to postpone the break because more supervision is needed in the schoolyard. Suddenly the break no longer starts around 12.00 noon, but teachers can eat their sandwiches at 14.00 p.m. when the students go home. Is that allowed just like that?
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The break in primary education; the AOb regularly receives questions about it. Can a director adjust the break time - in the middle of the school year? AObInformation and Advice employee Jelte Klerk: “The answer to that is: no. A director cannot unilaterally decide that break times will change.”
Approval Mr
First of all, such a decision must go through the staff section of the participation council, Klerk explains. After all, it affects the staff. “The council has the right of approval on such a decision, which goes further than the right to advice. Something like this can therefore never be decided suddenly. This is the case with all employers, even outside education.”
A director cannot unilaterally decide that break times will change
In addition, there is another aspect in primary education: the work distribution plan. In this plan, the team divides the work per school year. Now the break times will not be discussed every year - certainly not once they have been fixed. Klerk points out that the work distribution plan also goes through the mr and that it is mainly something that you discuss and determine together as a team. “So if the team wants a break at 14.00 p.m., the break can start at that time.”
Move up
The legal staff has recently seen more questions about the break. Also in the survey about autonomy from the Education magazine, several education staff indicated that it is sometimes difficult during the break. 'Switching breaks without consultation', one employee wrote as a recent example in which she experienced insufficient freedom. 'Certain tasks that need to be done such as supervising during the break (free of charge!)', mentioned another. Or: 'No break until 14.00pm. Teachers are entitled to breaks without the children and in which they can choose how to spend that break.'
School administrators are increasingly trying to push the break time closer to 14.00 p.m. Concerned members on the telephone wonder: is that allowed, because many colleagues think it is too late. It has to do with a collective labor agreement change in 2019. “When the work distribution plan was introduced, the obligation that a break must fall between 10:00 a.m. and 14:00 p.m. was removed from the collective labor agreement,” says collective labor agreement negotiator Anton Bodegraven. “It is not appropriate to record this if you say in the work distribution plan that teams can make their own agreements at school level.”
CLA amendment
Having the break only start at 14.00 p.m. is allowed since the collective labor agreement change. Klerk: “There is one but, the team must agree with it and it must be included in the work distribution plan. The manager must also agree to it.” The break is a point of attention for the collective labor agreement negotiators. Bodegraven points to it final chord. “We have explicitly indicated that we will pay attention to the pause when evaluating the work distribution plan. We see that breaks are not always discussed sufficiently within teams.”
The collective labor agreement states that the unions and employer organizations will help schools. They want to share good examples from the field so that it is clearer what choices teams have when they discuss their break times in the work distribution plan. Bodegraven: “We will start this soon.”
Working Hours Act, these are the break rules:
The rules for taking a break are in the Working Hours Act. Employees who work 5,5 hours or more are entitled to a break. They are allowed to take a break for 30 minutes and this can also be split into two 15-minute breaks. The law also prescribes that the break does not fall at the beginning or end of a working day, because it is actually an interruption.
