We forgot to include a visit to the Ministry of Labour on our ‘to-do’ list, but fortunately we discovered this oversight in good time. So, somewhat delayed, we recently visited this Ministry to have them check whether the type of personnel contracts that we would like to issue are legally allowed.
Ideally we would like our employees to live within the community, but of course they are entitled to work week with a certain number of working hours and have a right to days off. If the ‘living-in’ arrangement is not possible, the question is whether we would be allowed to issue contracts in which employees work in 12-hour shifts from 6 to 6, with a right to some hours off during this period. It’s always better to seek advice beforehand than to be confronted with having broken the labour laws afterwards. We also needed to find out to which regulations we must adhere, as the law prescribes that all kinds of committees ought to be established and a technical document be drafted. Fortunately for us, these regulations only apply to organisations with many more employees than the number we eventually envisage employing. So that saves us a lot of work!
We will have more involvement with the Ministry of Labour when in due course we have housemates who would be capable of doing paid work. There is a labour law stipulating that companies are obliged to at least employ some people with intellectual disabilities, and therefore the Ministry maintains a data base of such people. This indicates that there is some kind of care for this target group. However, there is no active policy to implement this law, and the Ministry certainly does not act as an intermediary between intellectually disabled persons in the data base and potential employers. Who knows whether we can contribute even a little towards improving this situation.