Amy Pieters takes Team SD Worx - Protime to court in a dispute over her "indefinite" contract

This is new...

Legally it will be interesting but I think she will lose.

The article really messes up the description of the situation. Firstly, it does not explain at all why her contract should be indefinite which isn’t really ever the case in cycling and secondly, it doesn’t mention that her accident was outside her duties to the team (and this will have a huge impact).

She was training with the national team so it had nothing to do with her employment and the damages are likely to become the responsibility of her cyclists insurance (personal, national or even UCI) and not her employer (of course, each will find it worthwhile to try to trick another into paying out).

As to the argument for having begotten an indefinite contact. Some countries have laws stating that you cannot propose 3 consecutive defined period contracts to an employee, the reason behind this is to avoid companies from being able to avoid taking on hard to fire staff with more rights and benefits or keeping people temping all their life.

The problem is that a judge will quickly see that cycling contracts are always period defined (for the very simple reason of work being performance based) and that this is in no way an attempt to avoid exploitation of employees.

She might also want to take care to reread her whole contract to avoid being sued by the team if they want to turn nasty. Just like many cycling contracts will have clauses banning riders from undertaking dangerous activities outside their work (like skiing or riding motorbikes), she may not actually have had a written clause allowing her to ride her bike with or for others, that could boomerang her.

In any case, it’s a sad ending to things but one that concerns thousands and thousands of people less well equipped to test their rights or to use public pressure to sway decisions or change things.

At least this case will help make contracts clearer for others in future.