Photo credits @ Joost J. Bakker / IJmuiden

Supreme Court rules against Hungarian drivers’ claim to Dutch wages

Dutch haulier Van den Bosch Transport has been involved in a decade-long legal battle with ten Hungarian truck drivers over Dutch wages. The drivers were employed by the Hungarian TankTrans Kft (now Van den Bosch Transport Kft) but mostly worked in the Netherlands. The Dutch Supreme Court has now overturned a previous court ruling that entitled the HGV drivers to Dutch wages.

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The legal battle started 10 years ago when the FNV trade union initiated an inquiry into the practices of Dutch carrier Van Den Bosch Transporten, which triggered the case.

One of the motives for launching an investigation against the company was the termination of ten Hungarian drivers, who subsequently sued the company for not adhering to Dutch labour laws regarding the payment of their wages.

The 10 drivers were employed by Silo Tank, a Hungarian sister company of Van den Bosch, but the transports were carried out for Van den Bosch in the Dutch city of Erp, where the starting and ending points of the transportation tasks usually took place in the Van den Bosch centre.

Workflow planning and assignments also came from Erp, and drivers had to arrange their days off with Van den Bosch, not Silo Tank.

Several decisions for and against the Hungarian drivers

In 2015, FNV won the case but lost the appeal. In May 2017, the Court of Appeal in Hertogenbosch then ruled that the drivers were not entitled to Dutch remuneration.

Next, this judgment was overturned by the Supreme Court on November 23, 2018. This ruling was later followed by another on July 27, 2021 at the Court of Appeal in Arnhem-Leeuwarden. It ruled that the drivers were indeed entitled to Dutch wages and ordered the employer to compensate them for their wages between 2007 and 2012.

However, on March 17, the Supreme Court made a new decision on about the case. This overturned the previous decision of the appeals court, which stated that the drivers usually worked in the Netherlands and ruled that the drivers are not entitled to Dutch salaries. The topsy-turvy case will now be reviewed by the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam.

Do such cases “adversely affect the image of the industry”?

Van den Bosch Transport Kft. CEO Rico Daandels commented that the verdict once again demonstrates the complexity of the case, not only within the case but on the scale of the entire sector. He also expressed concerns that such cases adversely affect the image of the industry.

The FNV Bondgenten trade union sees the matter from a completely different perspective, stating that the development of the case has brought a lot of good to the sector in a broader sense, thanks to the possibility of tightening regulations and holding customers accountable.

The union draws attention to a similar case against a Lithuanian company, where the Bruges Criminal Court decided in March that Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian drivers are entitled to Belgian wages since they actually work in Belgium.

The Belgian court immediately recognized the individual claims of the drivers appearing in the procedure, up to 69,000 euros. According to the FNV, this case proves the efficiency and deterrent effect of the Belgian system.

However, the union also highlights the slow legal process and the lack of action from the government, which it believes is allowing the likes of Van den Bosch to avoid consequences.

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