COR calls on UvA to improve social safety plan following Labour Inspectorate warnings
The UvA’s Central Works Council is calling for an improved action plan to address workload and social safety at the university. The council made the request in an unsolicited advice to the Executive Board. The appeal follows discussions with the Netherlands Labour Authority, during which the UvA received multiple warnings about “psychosocial workload” risks.
Fear of negative consequences when raising concerns, managers who are unsure how to respond, and policy plans that fail to take root on the work floor. In an unsolicited advisory letter, the UvA’s Central Works Council (COR) has urged the Executive Board (CvB) of the University of Amsterdam to strengthen its approach to psychosocial workload – the collective term for factors that contribute to work-related stress or a socially unsafe working environment. According to the employee representative body, the university’s current approach falls short in several key areas.
The Central Works Council is the central employee representative body of the University of Amsterdam, representing all university staff.
On behalf of employees, the council consults with the Executive Board of the University of Amsterdam on university-wide policy, employment conditions, and the overall functioning of the institution.
The COR’s conclusions follow a series of visits by the Netherlands Labour Authority to the UvA. Between November 2025 and April 2026, inspectors visited the university on three occasions to investigate workload-related issues. During those discussions, the university received three verbal warnings from the regulator: it does not sufficiently identify where the risks of inappropriate behaviour are located, it inadequately measures the effectiveness of its interventions, and it lacks sufficient oversight and direction.
Inappropriate behaviour
The data also suggest that there is considerable room for improvement when it comes to psychosocial workload at the University of Amsterdam. According to the most recent employee satisfaction survey, conducted in April 2025, 25 per cent of university staff reported experiencing inappropriate behaviour, an increase of four percentage points compared with the previous survey in 2023. The most commonly reported forms of inappropriate behaviour were gossiping, abuse of power, and aggression or violence.
Moreover, the Central Works Council observes that the university’s culture surrounding workload and social safety is characterised by “fear of negative career consequences when raising concerns, uncertainty among managers about how to act, and a tendency to place responsibility on individuals rather than addressing structural causes.”
Higher priority
For the COR, which has long regarded workload and inappropriate behaviour as major concerns, this is reason for the UvA to take more decisive action to improve working conditions. The council argues that workload and social safety should be managed “with the same priority and systematic approach as financial and core operational processes.”
The employee representative body is therefore calling on the Executive Board of the University of Amsterdam to develop a joint improvement plan in the coming months. Existing action plans should be simplified, while the roles of HR and confidential advisers should be strengthened. In addition, the COR urges the university to prioritise areas where the employee satisfaction survey revealed particularly high levels of social unsafety – most notably within parts of the Faculty of Humanities (FGw) and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG).
A UvA spokesperson said that the CvB will respond to the unsolicited advice within six weeks.
