Working from Curacao: unpaid leave and salary

Questioner

I plan to work for my current employer from Curacao for a period of 6 months. He indicates that he is not insured for sick leave if I am outside the Netherlands. A solution seems to me to register as on unpaid leave. Then the insurance will continue. Can I still be paid a salary for my work despite being on unpaid leave?

Lawyer

In my answer I assume that you have chosen to work from Curaçao and that there is no question of secondment, etc. Unpaid leave means that you do not receive any salary. There are collective labor agreements that provide that an employee who takes unpaid leave for a month remains insured for employee insurance and that the employer still pays pension premiums. But not for unpaid leave longer than a month. In any case, an employee usually has to pay the pension premium themselves in the event of unpaid leave and it may even be the case that the employer recovers the premiums that are charged to the employer from the employee. You should therefore investigate what the collective labor agreement and what the Pension Fund regulates in this regard. There is no clear answer to this. Perhaps the HR department can advise you on this.