New sectoral agreement signed for local government staff in Flanders

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In October 2005, a new sectoral agreement was concluded for the 140,000 local and provincial government employees in the Flemish part of Belgium. The three-year deal, which was not signed by the socialist CGSP/ACOD trade union, provides for increases in various allowances as well as amending a number of qualitative aspects of employment regulation and conditions.

On 28 October 2005, a new sectoral agreement was signed for the 140,000 or so local and provincial government employees in Flanders. The agreement, which is valid for three years (2005 to 2007 inclusive), covers staff working for city, municipality and province administrations as well as those working for public welfare centres (OCMWs). The agreement also applies to health institutions depending on these administrations (eg the highly important OCMW hospitals), to the so-called 'intercommunales' (corporations of municipalities, eg in electricity distribution) and to municipal or provincial public enterprises (eg waste processing). The agreement does not apply to local police, fire brigades or education, which have their own specific regulations.

The agreement was reached in talks chaired by the Flemish minister responsible for local government, Marino Keulen, and signed by the local and provincial employers' representatives and two of the three public service trade unions - the Public Services Christian Union (Centrale Chrétienne des Services Publics/Christelijke Centrale van de Openbare Diensten, CCSP/CCOD) and the liberal Free Trade Union of Civil Servants (Syndicat libre de la Fonction Publique/Vrij Syndicaat voor het Openbaar Ambt, SLFP/VSOA). The socialist General Confederation of Public Services (Centrale Générale des Services Publics/De Algemene Centrale der Openbare Diensten, CGSP/ACOD) refused to sign the agreement. On the side of the employers, three organisations were involved - the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (Vlaamse Vereniging van Steden en Gemeenten, VVSG), the Association of Flemish Provinces (Vereniging van Vlaamse Provincies, VVP) and the Association of Flemish Public Care Institutions (Vlaamse Vereniging van Openbare Verzorgingsinstellingen, VOV).

Content

The agreement provides additional wage rewards to staff:

• in 2006 there is to be a flat-rate EUR 100 across-the-board increase in the end-of-year allowance and a EUR 100 increase in the locally-granted annual amount for food vouchers; and

• in 2007 there is to be another EUR 100 increase in the locally-granted annual amount for food vouchers.

The agreement also includes 'qualitative' measures, which pertain to employment conditions from the employees' point of view, and to the training and allocation of staff from the employers' side. Besides introducing a number of adaptations derived from various items of legislation (eg the law on working time in public administrations and a soon-to-be-elaborated new Flemish decree on municipalities), the main features of these measures encompass increased decision-making autonomy at local level and the introduction of new types of modern staff policies (such as job evaluation and project-based remuneration). Furthermore, it will now be possible to recruit staff without the requirement for a particular qualification when the employee has acquired relevant competences in another manner. Finally, the choice of selection procedures for staff recruitment will also be made easier for public administrations.

Scope

Unlike a collective agreement in the Belgian private sector, the new agreement for Flemish local government is not immediately binding. The Flemish government still needs to transpose the text into an implementation decree. Moreover, the scope of the agreement is not the same as in the case of a private sector collective agreement. In the latter case, agreements are mostly considered generally binding, meaning that they are mandatory for each employer in the sector, whether or not it is a member of the employers' organisation that signed the accord.

Within the Belgian public sector there is a different system of labour negotiations. Since 1974, government bodies are in some cases obliged to negotiate or to consult with the unions, depending on the subject at stake, but they are not bound by the results of these negotiations. The most important issues which, according to the 1974 regulation, require mandatory negotiations a priori are wages, the administrative statute, retirement arrangements and general provisions regarding working time, work organisation and staff training. As far as the latter provisions are concerned, in the case of specific measures, only consultation is needed. Negotiations take place within specially created joint negotiation committees and result in the drafting of a protocol document. This text can either lay down the agreement between the government and the unions concerned (a 'protocol of agreement') or, in the event that no agreement was reached, outline the different points of view. These protocols are, in effect, political commitments on the part of the government, yet they are not legally binding. Ultimately, the government can therefore disregard the decisions set out in such a document.

In Flanders, sectoral agreements pertaining to regional and local administrations come into being after negotiations between the Flemish government and the unions that represent civil servants - CGSP/ACOD (socialist), CCSP/CCOD (Christian) and SLFP/VSOA (liberal). These negotiations mostly take place within the Flemish region and Flemish community subsection of the so-called C Committee for provincial and local government services.

On 7 July 2000, a cooperation agreement was concluded whereby local employers' bodies (VVSG, VVP and VOV) may also become involved in the sectoral negotiations. The employers commit themselves to applying the sectoral agreements in their administrations, the unions to making no further claims locally, and the Flemish government to guaranteeing the correct implementation of the sectoral agreements through its administrative supervision.

In Flanders, the first of this kind of sectoral agreement for local administrations was signed on 18 June 1993. It concerned a general review of wage scales. At the same time, guidelines were drafted for the administrative and pay statute for employees. The consolidated version of the successive sectoral agreements since 1993 are called the the 'common guidelines for a coherent staff policy in local and regional administrations', otherwise known as the Kelchtermans guidelines. These guidelines also establish a number of tools for staff policy: staff training, job descriptions, assessment and the principle of objective recruitment.

Consequences of CGSP/ACOD opposition

Recently, a new sectoral extension was created to the Kelchtermans guidelines. It is important to bear in mind that this is just a common minimum framework or template, which is agreed upon and can only become reality if local administrations make the necessary decisions to implement it. In making these decisions, they have to take into consideration the local negotiation committees.

Moreover, this compromise was severely undermined by CGSP/ACOD's rejection of the new agreement reached in October 2005. This influential socialist union rejected the agreement because it does not agree to its duration. According to CGSP/ACOD, three years is in contradiction with the period of two years which is traditionally used in public service agreements. More importantly, the union also finds the agreement too limited in terms of the increase it provides in purchasing power. There will be no additional bonuses in 2005 and in 2006 - only a minor increase of the end-of-year allowance is foreseen. In addition, there will be no raise in the lower levels of the wage scales, which is something this union strongly supported. CGSP/ACOD now hopes to bring its demands to fruition through its weight in the local negotiations and administrative decisions through which the agreement will have to be implemented and put into practice. In this regard, the union looks towards 2006, when local government elections are due and these governments may prefer to avoid any unrest amongst their staff.

Commentary

With the new sectoral agreement, the social partners (in a tripartite structure) have continued their tradition of common labour regulation for local governments and administrations in Flanders, an important sector in terms of employment. It is noteworthy that during the first few years of the practice, this was an effort essentially focused on homogenisation and centralisation, in which the Flemish government and its supervisory mandate played the king-pin role. Nowadays, there is increasing room for autonomy and ability to choose on the part of local administrations and governments. It is also striking that this system of social dialogue continues to be defined by a lower binding power than the collective agreement system in the Belgian private sector. (Guy Van Gyes, HIVA-KU Leuven)