The National Labour Council in 1999: an overview

The National Labour Council is the most important bipartite negotiation and consultation forum at national level in Belgium. This article reviews the Council's activities in 1999. Although in the past few years the Council may appear to have been just an institutionalised facility for negotiations, mostly producing relatively technical collective agreements, it is an institution with high national political relevance, keeping negotiating traditions alive in good and in bad times.

The National Labour Council (Nationale Arbeidsraad/Conseil National du Travail, NAR/CNT) was established by law in 1952. It is a bipartite body in which the employers' and workers' organisations are equally represented. One of its main competences is to advise the national authorities (government and parliament) on all general matters involving employers' organisations and trade unions, and on regulations concerning the social security system. Furthermore, the Council is entitled to give advice on its own initiative - a competence which has been used only moderately.

Second, and in parallel with the abovementioned consultation function, the Law of 1968 on Collective Labour Agreements institutionalised the negotiating function of the Council, entitling it to conclude national collective labour agreements (CLA s). Before the Law of 1968, these CLAs had no legal force.

In 1999, the National Labour Council negotiated five "new" CLAs (Nos. 71 to 75), delivered 41 opinions (Nos. 1260 to 1300) and issued four reports (Nos. 53 to 56). These are examined below.

Collective labour agreements

Since the first CLA in 1970, a total of 70 CLAs had been concluded up to the end of 1998. Five more CLAs were negotiated in 1999, while two existing CLAs (No. 17 on early retirement and No. 46 on night shifts and other forms of night work) were supplemented.

Of the five new CLAs, four were of a rather technical nature:

• No. 71 on the maintenance of the normal wage during absence due to the decease of great-grandparents and great-grandchildren;

• No. 73 concerning a supplementary allowance for some older workers in industrial sectors in which no bipartite joint committee exists or is active;

• No. 74 concerning the maintenance of the normal wage for legally cohabiting workers for absence from work on the occasion of specific family events; and

• No. 75 concerning the dismissal notice period for blue-collar workers.

CLA No. 72 is of a more substantial nature. This CLA concerned policy on preventing stress at work (BE9904269F). The problem of stress at work was one of the main concerns of the previous Minister for Employment and Labour before the current government took over in July 1999. Such a CLA was also requested in the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement (BE9811252F). CLA No. 72 defines stress as a problem of a collective nature and does not deal with stress problems of individuals. It confers a joint responsibility on both social partners in the prevention of stress. Works councils and health and safety committees are seen as important instruments in the consultation process at the company level in order to help shape a prevention policy.

Opinions and specific reports

In 1999, the National Labour Council delivered 41 opinions. Nine were the result of an initiative of the social partners in the Council, all others were requested by the Minister for Employment and Labour and/or the Minister for Social Affairs. Of the 41 opinions, 10 concerned individual employment relations, nine collective labour relations and 21 aspects of social security regulations. Almost all, 39 out of 41, were unanimous opinions; in one case (employment conditions for students employed by temporary work agencies) employers' organisations and trade unions disagreed and in another case (the application of social security regulations in the security sector) the representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises within the employers' delegation marked their opposition. The Council also issued four reports.

Some of the more important opinions and reports were as follows:

• opinion No. 1260 concerned an increase of the net wages of workers with a guaranteed average minimum income. This opinion followed one of the measures included in the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement;

• opinion No. 1270 concerned the "social elections". Normally, social elections for works councils and health and safety committees have to be held every four years. The previous Minister for Employment and Labour had asked to postpone the elections scheduled in 1999 until 2000. Opinion No. 1270 fixes the dates for the elections as 8-21 May 2000 (BE0001302N);

• opinion No. 1273 deals with simplification and modernisation of the social administration paperwork to be kept by employers (report No. 56 elaborates on this problem) and also with the concepts of "full-time" and "part-time" work;

• in opinion No. 1283, the Council presses parliament to progress on the application of regulations concerning the closure of companies - parliamentary debate on this subject has been underway since 1989;

• opinions Nos. 1293, 1294 and 1295, in execution of the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement (BE9912312F), concerned respectively a series of proposals to fight "unemployment traps" (primarily by harmonising existing employment plans), the participation rate of older workers on the labour market, and, finally, the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services;

• four opinions pertained to international regulations. Two of them followed decisions by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). One (No. 1292) concerned the preparation of the 88th session of the International Labour Conference to be held in June 2000 (Report IV on the protection of maternity in the workplace). Another concerned the application of ILO Convention No. 144 on tripartite consultation procedures to promote the implementation of international labour standards. Report No. 53 dealt with this latter problem (report No. 54 updates report No. 53 concerning tripartite consultation for the period June 1997-May 1999). Opinion No. 1290 dealt with EU Directive 96/71/EC of 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services. Finally, opinion No. 1297 advises on the definitive phase of the transition from Belgian francs to euros; and

• report No. 55 is a joint assessment by the National Labour Council and the Central Economic Council (Conseil Central de l'Économie/Centrale Raad van het Bedrijfsleven, CCE/CRB) on trends in labour costs, employment and vocational training. This yearly assessment is called for in the 1999-2000 intersectoral agreement

Commentary

For several reasons it is crucial to assess the activities of the National Labour Council. It is the only national institution that combines the bipartite functions of both negotiation and consultation within the industrial relations system in such a prominent way. This two-fold competence allows the Council to play a very specific role because the conflict dimension and the consensus dimension of the relations between employers and workers can be dealt with at the same time and balanced, within one and the same forum. This has been particularly relevant in recent periods when, due to government intervention in the field of industrial relations, national bipartite negotiation outside the National Labour Council was extremely difficult if not impossible. Indeed, when from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s and, more recently, for the period 1997-8, no national bipartite intersectoral agreements could be negotiated, the national bipartite negotiation tradition was "kept alive" within the Council. This could be achieved because of the "mixed "nature of the National Labour Council wherein, as illustrated above for the year 1999, a high level of consensual consultation has been maintained.

Two more aspects should be highlighted. CLAs concluded in the Council have often been of a rather technical nature. Of course, this is connected with the previous point: even when relations between employers' organisations and trade unions are tense and can paralyse other mechanisms of the industrial relations system, the social partners can still agree on technical matters. The National Labour Council fulfils this role of organising a certain level of social peace and, thus, continuity in the industrial relations system. It must, nevertheless, be observed that in the past relatively more "programmatic" CLAs could be generated than has been the case recently. CLA No. 72 on stress has been cited above as one of these programmatic CLAs as regards content. Very few other examples can be identified in the past five years. The only significant exception is probably CLA No. 62 on European Works Councils (EWC s), concluded at the beginning of 1996. This brings us to a final remark.

One could have expected that Belgian industrial relations, because of the country's geographical and political position in Europe and its open economy, would be more influenced by the European context. After all, Belgium was one of the first countries to implement the EU directive on EWCs. Nevertheless, apart from CLAs Nos. 69 and 70 of 1998 on the technical aspects of the conversion of wages and wage-related benefits from Belgian francs to euros, surprisingly little "European follow-up" has taken place. The opinions delivered by the National Labour Council in 1999 on ILO-related issues do not modify the image of a Council almost exclusively preoccupied by country-specific problems. (Jacques Vilrokx and Dominique Ranson, VUB-TESA).