Three Notices in Advance that the Fixed Term Employment Contract Will not be Extended Does not Work

An employer could not beforehand validly indicate in the employment contract, that the employment contract would not be extended after the agreed term had expired, after he had indicated so twice before, but had extended the employment contract anyway.
An amusement park had entered into three consecutive fixed term employment contracts with an employee. Each of these employment contracts included a provision in which the employer informed the employee that the employment contract would not be extended after the agreed term had expired. Despite these provisions, the employment contract had been extended twice. This was not what happened after the third employment contract, however.
That employment contract was terminated by operation of law and was subsequently not extended.
The employee claimed a compensation with the Sub-district Court, equal to the amount of one month's salary for failure to timely - i.e. one month in advance- give notice in writing that the employment contract would not be extended after the agreed term had expired.
The employer argued that this statutory notification compensation had not been due because the employee had already been informed, in writing, in his employment contract, that the employment contract would not be extended once the agreed term had expired. According to the legislative history it is possible to meet the statutory notice obligation this way.

The Sub-district Court acknowledged the latter, but was of the opinion that, nevertheless, the employer had, failed to meet the notice obligation. The purpose of the statutory obligation to notify in writing whether the employment contract will be continued after the agreed term has expired, and if so, under what conditions, no later than one month before the end of the employment contract, is to ensure that the employee will know in good time whether or not he/she has to look for alternative employment. Since the employer had previously extended the employment contract twice after having informed the employee in advance in the employment contract that it would not be extended, the employee missed this clarity.
At the end of the hearing, the Sub-district Court immediately sentenced orally: the employer has to pay the compensation for failure to give notice.

During the debate in the House of Representatives on the Work and Security Act, in which the notification obligation was introduced into the law, Minister Asscher, at the time explicitly stated that it is possible to notify from the start in the employment contract that the employment contract will not be extended after the agreed term has expired. Thus, according to the Minister, the employee will know very well in advance that he will have to move around the labour market again when the employment contract has expired.
The Minister had his doubts whether employers would frequently use this opportunity, since they might also lose employees they were satisfied with, whereas they would have to hire new employees if the activities in question don’t also lapse.
At the time, we warned that the opportunity to give notice in advance in the employment contract should not be used in order to subsequently postpone the decision as to whether or not the employment contract should be extended till the end of the employment contract, without timely giving a renewed notice in writing, since nevertheless extending the employment contract would reduce the expressiveness of a subsequent notification in advance in a subsequent fixed-term employment contract.
It is significant that, in its ruling, the Sub-district Court decided to quote Aesop's fable about the boy who shouted "wolf". In the words of the Sub-district Court: "Once the boy, who had to look after the flock of sheep, had in vain sounded the alarm three times by shouting "wolf", the fourth time no one responded to his alarm. And in the evening the father only perceived a wolf with a fat belly and his son's straw hat sticking out of the wolf's mouth."