WOR check: which participation body is required — and does your decision need advice or consent?
Use your headcount to establish which body the Dutch Works Councils Act requires — a works council from 50 employees, a staff meeting from 10 — test your current situation against it, and check whether a proposed decision falls under the Art. 25 advice right or the Art. 27 consent right.
Who it’s for
What the tool does
Two questions that are easily conflated
Whether you must have a participation body, and whether a specific decision must go through it, are two different questions. The first depends only on headcount: a works council from fifty, a staff meeting between ten and forty-nine, nothing required below that. The second depends only on the subject: a scheme on pay or working hours falls under the consent right, a reorganisation or acquisition under the advice right.
The distinction between advice and consent is not a matter of degree. With consent, a decision implemented without consent and without substitute authorisation from the sub-district court may be void — the heaviest sanction the Act provides. With advice, the issue is timing: advice must be sought while it can still materially influence the decision. The check gives the type, the article reference and the accompanying procedural steps per decision, and records that in a report with tool version and dataset vintage.