2000 Annual Review for Belgium

Source: Federal Ministry of Employment and Labour.

The negotiation of collective agreements is one of the main roles of sectoral joint committees in Belgium. As at 30 June 2000, there were 94 joint committees, involving 2,351 social partner representatives (of whom only 281 – 11% – were women). Two new joint subcommittees were set up in 2000 (No. 318.01 for home-help services and No. 318.02 for elderly persons' carers), and three former joint committees were abolished: No. 122 (preparation of flax), No. 123 (textiles industry in the Verviers district); and No. 138 (manufacture of, and trade in, hessian bags).

Pay

The national intersectoral agreement reached in November 1998, covering 1999 and 2000 (BE9811252F), provided that hourly labour costs should not rise any faster than those in Belgium's three main neighbouring countries (France, Germany and the Netherlands). Pay rises over the two years should, it was recommended, be within a maximum increase of 5.9% in the labour costs for full-time workers. This applied during 2000, but economic growth during the year revived talk of the appropriateness of such a pay norm in Belgium (BE0008323F). However, the new intersectoral agreement for 2001-2, concluded in December 2000, retained a norm, setting it at 6.4% over two years, or 7% in well-performing sectors (BE0101337F).

Working time

The Minister of Labour, Laurette Onkelinx, reinitiated debate on shorter working hours in May 2000 when she called on the social partners to work actively in this field and proposed measures such as a four-day working week, a 35-hour working week and a system of time credits (BE0005312F). The year saw the negotiation of a number of agreements in line with the law of 26 March 1999: this legislation allows companies to obtain reductions in employers' social security contributions if they recruit extra staff and reduce average working hours, or take on more workers in the context of introducing a four-day working week.

The 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement provided for a reduction in the legal maximum for weekly working hours, from 40 to 39 hours as of 1 January 1999. The 2001-2 agreement, signed in December 2000, contained a number of measures in response to the the Minister of Labour's working time proposals. The Minister had asked the social partners to reduce the maximum working week from 39 to 38 hours with immediate effect, which was unthinkable for employers in small and medium-sized companies. The agreement leaves negotiations on this issue to the sector and company levels, but with a requirement to cut weekly hours to 38 by January 2003. The social partners also asked the government to make the reduction in employers' social security contributions for companies that conclude collective agreements reducing working time available from 2001 (rather than 2002, as planned).

The new intersectoral accord also contained a number of measures to assist in the reconciliation of work and family life: the right to a "time credit" of one year, full time or half time; the right to a career break equivalent to one-fifth of a week for five years; the right to half-time work or 80% work for workers aged over 50; a system of specific leave (eg parental leave or leave to care for an ill family member); and a specific system for very small companies with fewer than 10 workers (which will include a requirement for the employer's consent for the new forms of time off). Independent of these measures, paternity leave was raised to 10 days (previously three). The agreement also retains existing early retirement systems, while seeking to improve the employment opportunities for older workers, through a variety of working time adaptations and recruitment incentives.

Job security

Under the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement, the social partners aimed to unite their efforts in order to achieve employment rates in Belgium that are at least as high as those achieved by its three main neigbouring countries and, if possible, to improve upon this, taking into consideration agreements on training and employment and reductions of labour-related costs. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that over 1999-2000, employment in Belgium would increase by exactly the same percentage as in the three reference countries (BE9912312F).

The recommendations of the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement were transposed into the abovementioned law of 26 March 1999 on the 1998 Belgian National Action Plan (NAP) for employment (see below) and other provisions. This law provides for reductions in employers' social security contributions where the employers concerned are party to a collective agreement on training and employment that has been concluded by a joint committee or at company level.

Both the 1999-2000 and 2001-2 intersectoral agreements provide for an effort of 0.10% of total paybill for the employment and training of people from "risk groups".

Training and skills development

The 1999-2000 intersectoral agreements confirmed the social partners' commitment to making additional efforts in the area of continuing training and education, with a view to achieving investment in training in Belgium which is equivalent to the average level reached by its three main neighbouring countries (ranging from 1.2% to 1.9% of total paybill) within six years. For the period 1999-2000, this meant an increase in employer contributions to training from 1.2% to 1.4% of paybill. One year on from the conclusion of the agreement, it was thought that 80% of sectors were covered by agreements that included training provisions (BE9912312F).

A particularly notable sectoral agreement signed within the framework of the 1999-2000 intersectoral accord was that in the most important joint committee, the national auxiliary joint committee for white-collar workers, which covers 300,000 salaried employees not catered for within other sectors (BE0008324F). The agreement provides that all full-time workers in the sector are entitled to at least four days of training over the three-year validity of the agreement (the entitlement for part-time workers is pro rata) - a measure which contrasts with the usual approach in sectoral agreements of laying down a budgetary norm for training expenditure.

In the 2001-2 intersectoral agreement, signed in December 2000 (BE0101337F), the social partners confirmed their commitment on continuing training. In practice this means that, up until the end of 2002, companies will increase their spending on such training to 1.6% of pay costs. The intersectoral negotiators expressly requested the individual sectors to give priority in their agreements to training for certain target groups (such as older workers, women, unskilled workers, and occupations experiencing labour shortages). A new feature of the agreement was that part-time workers will now also be entitled to paid education leave for vocational training. There will also be additional training possibilities for workers over the age of 45,

Legislative developments

A number of legislative changes took effect in the employment field in 2000. First, a royal decree confirmed the extension of notice periods for blue-collar workers, in accordance with the provisions of the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement. This formed part of a continuing process of harmonising the employment status of blue- and white-collar workers (BE0003307F). The 2001-2 intersectoral agreement calls for further harmonisation measures.

Second, the Minister of Labour introduced legislation authorising non-EU immigrants who do not have the correct papers and are seeking to have their position regularised, to take up employment while waiting for a decision on their application. The stated aim is to "help those concerned to live in conditions that respect each person's individual dignity, and to enable those who have found a job to have employment".

Finally, new legislation provides that unemployed artists may take artistic employment and retain their unemployment rights as long as they meet certain conditions (such as a maximum limit on the income from the artistic work concerned) (BE0101338F).

The organisation and role of the social partners

A number of changes to the organisation of employers' organisations took place in 2000. In November, Fabrimétal, formerly the metalworking sector employers' organisation, was renamed as Agoria," the multi-sectoral federation for the technology industry". According to the federation, it changed its name because "for several years, the name and image of the employers' federation had ceased to reflect what was actually happening in the sector. The federation now brings together enterprises in the metals and materials sector, metal products, plastics, engineering, electrical engineering and electronics, information and communication technology (ICT), automotive, aerospace, defence and security."

In July 2000, two agricultural employers' associations in Wallonia region, the Belgian Agricultural Alliance (Alliance Agricole Belge, AAB) and UPA-UDEF merged and became the Agriculture Sector Union (Union Professionnelle Agricole, UPA).

Industrial action

Three basic types of industrial action took place in Belgium in 2000, as follows:

• strikes in response to restructuring. Action occurred in the public postal service, following the announcement by management of a social plan (involving the loss of 11,000 jobs) with a view to liberalising postal services (BE0003305N). In addition, conflict was seen around the restructuring of the police and the gendarmerie into an "integrated police force" (BE0008320N). In the private sector, there was a dispute over the decision of the Canadian engineering group Bombardier to close its Manage plant in Belgium (BE0004309F). In the end the factory did not close, but was instead acquired by the Italian-Swiss Duferco group which had already purchased two steelworking sites in Wallonia, Forges de Clabecq and the former UGB at La Louvière;

• occasional industrial unrest around the renewal of collective agreements in certain sectoral joint committees and at enterprise level. An example was the not-for-profit sector (welfare, healthcare and social-cultural activities), where important negotiations took place in 2000, resulting in March in the conclusion of a new federal-level agreement in the healthcare sector (BE0003305F). Further, various agreements were also signed in this sector at regional level in Flanders (BE0011331F). The renewal of the collective agreement at the GIB retail group led to strikes following the non-payment of a profit-sharing bonus that had been awarded for the previous 20 years (BE0006314N); and

• industrial unrest linked to renewed economic growth, which grew from July onwards. Euphoria over the upturn prompted certain members of the government to make some very optimistic statements suggesting that there were resources available to meet the demands of many groups. This triggered demands from certain sectors during the autumn - two high-profile disputes concerned lorry drivers (BE0010329F) and the TEC public transport system in Wallonia (BE0012334F).

National Action Plan (NAP) on employment

The social partners were consulted over the preparation of the 2000 Belgian NAP. However, the consultation deadlines for NAPs have been very tight and the content of successive NAPs has tended to be repetitive. The social partners have thus not always had a chance to play an active role in preparing the NAP.

By contrast, the social partners played a quite different role in the implementation of the NAP: the two-yearly intersectoral agreements now comply with the NAP guidelines. For example, in the 1999-2000 NAP, the social partners stated that they "would like to help to implement the Belgian April 1998 NAP, and particularly the programme for reducing employment and training costs in order to increase the employability of the active population".

The social partners therefore play a more active in the implementation of the NAP. However, in his 2000 evaluation report on federal employment policy, Michel Jadot, general secretary at the Ministry of Employment and Labour, offers a critical analysis of the way the social partners are involved in the implementation of the NAP: "the social partners seem to be given exclusive and far-reaching responsibility. But their freedom is limited: the objectives are fixed, and all they can do is discuss ways of achieving them." He also stressed that this kind of concertation emphatically does not correspond where Belgian practice "where, in social matters, the social partners impose the outcome of their negotiations on the government, and not the other way round".

Equal opportunities and diversity issues

In the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement, the social partners called on sectors in which the system of classifying job functions leads to inequality between men and women to carry out a review of these systems within the joint committees. This review of the classification of functions was described in a 1999 joint report on employment as positive. However, according to the abovementioned 2000 evaluation report on federal employment policy, as yet, only a few sectors have set up a study group to look into the possible introduction of a new sectoral scheme.

The Minister of Employment and Labour transferred to the budget earmarked for the May 2000 social elections of employee representatives (see below under "Information and consultation of employees") BEF 10 million from the equal opportunities budget in order to mount an information campaign aimed specifically at women.

Lastly, the Belgian government decided in 2000 to broaden the competence of the public Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (Centre pour l'égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme/Centrum voor gelijkheid van kansen en voor racismebestrijding) by expanding its remit to cover matters such as gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, as specified in Article 13 of the EU Treaty.

Information and consultation of employees

There were no significant changes in the structure of employee information and consultation in Belgium during 2000.

However, one of the main events during the year was the "social elections", which took place in May 2000. In the private sector, approximately 1.3 million employees in nearly 6,000 companies voted to elect their representatives on works councils (Conseils d'entreprise/Ondernemingsraden) and committees for prevention and protection at the workplace (Comités pour la prévention et protection au travail/Comités voor preventie en bescherming op het werk) (BE0006316F). The elections did not result in major changes in the balances of power between the three main trade union confederations - the socialist Belgian General Federation of Labour (Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond, FGTB/ABVV), the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens/Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond, CSC/ACV) and the Federation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (Algemene Centrale der Liberale Vakbonden van België/Centrale Générale des Syndicaux Libéraux de Belgique, ACLVB/CGSLB).

In terms of trade union representation in companies, unions demanded improvements in the protection of their representatives within in the light of what they saw as a proliferation of attacks on trade union freedoms, through the dismissal of union delegates and court interference in disputes (BE0012333N).

New forms of work

Temporary agency work

The temporary agency work sector in Belgium is unusual in several ways: first, because it has its own social partners and sectoral joint committee; and second, because the law has played an important role since temporary agency work was first introduced in Belgium. This legislation is notable both for the high level of protection it gives temporary agency workers (a trade union demand) and for the extended legal opportunities for using this type of work (an employer demand). Similar trends continued in 2000, and open-ended temporary agency work contracts were allowed for the first time - previously, contracts could cover only the duration of a specific task. However, this statutory extension of flexibility affects only those workers seen as "difficult to place". A subsequent collective agreement broadened opportunities for using agency workers in so-called "exceptional" jobs (one of the three statutory grounds for using temporary agency staff). This trend towards broadening the category of people affected by temporary agency working, and of opportunities for using such workers, confirms the considerable growth of this form of employment that took place during the second half of the 1990s.

In the 2001-2 intersectoral agreement, the social partners agreed to "discuss objectively" the possibility of lifting a ban on the use of temporary agency work in the construction sector.

Teleworking

Teleworking is governed by a law dating from 1996 that sets out guidelines for contracts for working at home, in line with a 1994 opinion from the National Labour Council (Conseil National du Travail/Nationale Arbeidsraad, CNT/NAR). There was little statutory change in this area in 2000. However, on 26 June 2000 the social partners on the National Labour Council and the Central Economic Council (Conseil Central de l'Economie/Centrale Raad van het Bedrijfsleven, CCE/CRB) issued an opinion on the information society (in the framework of EU decisions taken at the 2000 Lisbon and Feira European Council s). This opinion includes a short section on teleworking.

Economically dependent workers

Under Belgian law, self-employed workers are distinguished from dependent employees by the fact that they are governed by the employer's legal authority, and that the employer has the right to give the worker orders in the performance of his or her contract. In some cases, self-employed status is imposed on workers who are economically dependent on a single employer. However, the concept of an "economically dependent worker" is vague, and is dealt with legally on a case-by-case basis in the event of a dispute. It depends, among other factors, on the evaluation of criteria such as financial independence (the ability to earn money from a variety of different sources) and technological independence (independence with regard to the materials required to do the job).

There were no significant developments in this field either in law or in collective agreements during 2000. However, a number of complaints have been filed by economically dependent workers who have asked the labour inspectorate to check on the legality of their contracts. For example, in 2000, the journalists on a daily newspaper brought before their sectoral joint committee's conciliation office a complaint concerning some 20 journalists who were deemed by their trade union to be falsely economically dependent.

Outlook

2001 will be notable for the sectoral bargaining which will follow on from the intersectoral agreement concluded at the end of December 2000. In some sectors, it is to be hoped that the social partners will reach an agrement despite the fact that social dialogue is currently coming under strain: examples of this trend include the banking sector, where sectoral negotiations in 1999 led to many days of strikes (BE9911310N).

The second half of 2001 will be characterised by the Belgian Presidency of the European Union. The social partners have already notified the government of the social policy issues where they hope to see progress being made (BE0101335N).