Legal Advice on Collective Labor Agreements and Overtime

Questioner

The fuels CAO has expired since June 2011. No new CAO has been drawn up. The employer has also not drawn up a replacement company CAO. The expired CAO contains an article stating that an employee over the age of 55 cannot be forced to work overtime. Now an employee aged 58 is forced to work an emergency service outside office hours for 1 week out of 4 weeks, in addition to his full-time job, from Friday 5:00 PM to a week later Friday morning 8:00 AM. Are we right when we say that this employee does not have to work an emergency service because he can still appeal to the expired Deurne CAO in connection with the after-effects of the Deurne CAO?

Lawyer

Based on case law, there is no general rule as to whether a non-generally binding collective labour agreement has after-effects or not. At the request of the employee, the employer can exempt the employee from performing overtime. From what you write, it does not appear that the employer wants to grant the employee exemption.