Thieving civil servant dismissed on the spot
A civil servant in the Zuidplas municipality stole a saddle from an old bicycle from the municipal waste depot. Although the theft concerned an item of little value, the subdistrict court agreed with the municipality's decision to dismiss the employee with immediate effect. Lecturer in employment law Marije Schneider considers this an appropriate measure.
'Employees, and civil servants in particular, have to act with integrity,' Schneider writes in Dutch magazine Binnenlands Bestuur. Regardless of the value of the item in question, it is definitely counts as theft and creates an irreparable breach of trust between the employer and the employee. Moreover, as a municipality, you don't want to have a civil servant with a reputation for theft to be associated with your organisation.
The collective labour agreement (CAO) for Dutch municipalities only mentions one disciplinary measure: suspension. Schneider feels that the CAO should include more types of sanctions. 'It's a shame that an entire set of appropriate measures has been disregarded.'
More information
Read the full article (in Dutch) in Binnenlands Bestuur
Photo by Aleksandr Kadykov through Unsplash