The employers’ and workers’ organisations represented on the National Labour Council (Conseil National du Travail/Nationale Arbeidsraad, CNT/ NAR) concluded a collective agreement on tele-working on 9 November. It transposes the framework agreement signed by the social partners in July 2002, and will come into force no later than 1 July 2006.
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The employers’ and workers’ organisations represented on the National Labour Council (Conseil National du Travail/Nationale Arbeidsraad, CNT/ NAR) concluded a collective agreement on tele-working on 9 November. It transposes the framework agreement signed by the social partners in July 2002, and will come into force no later than 1 July 2006.
This new collective agreement aims to lay down the key principles governing teleworking. It also contains various proposals on issues that need to be governed by laws or regulations, and which cannot therefore lie within the competence of the social partners.
The agreement first sets out what is understood by teleworking. It is defined as a way of organising and/or carrying out work using information technology, and within the framework of a contract of employment under which the work could have been performed on the employer’s premises, but is in fact performed off the premises on a regular, non-occasional basis. It follows that the agreement is not aimed at mobile workers, that is to say those like sales representatives, the representatives of pharmaceutical firms and home-call nurses, whose mobility is an integral feature of the performance of the contract of employment.
Teleworking may be carried out at the teleworker’s home or in any other place that she or he chooses, and will be performed on a voluntary basis as far as both the worker and the employer are concerned. A written agreement will need to be drawn up in respect of each teleworker. The existing contract of employment will have to be amended.
Teleworkers shall enjoy the same rights in respect of terms and conditions of employment as comparable workers employed on the employer’s premises. Specific (collective and/or individual) additional agreements may need to be concluded to take account of particular features of teleworking. The collective agreement also states that teleworkers shall be responsible for the organisation of their work within the framework of working hours that apply in the enterprise. The workload and performance criteria shall be equivalent to those for comparable workers employed on the employer’s premises.
The employer will be obliged to measures to protect the data used and processed by teleworkers for professional purposes, and will also have to inform teleworkers of the enterprise’s occupational health and safety policy.
Teleworkers will have the entitlements to training and career opportunities, and will enjoy the same collective rights, as workers employed on the employer’s premises.
Lastly, the collective agreement sets out how expenses relating to equipment, connections and communication and associated with teleworking will be borne.
This information is made available through the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO), as a service to users of the EIROnline database. EIRO is a project of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. However, this information has been neither edited nor approved by the Foundation, which means that it is not responsible for its content and accuracy. This is the responsibility of the EIRO national centre that originated/provided the information. For details see the "About this record" information in this record.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2005), A legal framework for teleworking, article.
