Newsletter // June 22

1 Office news

A contribution by Mr. Ludo Vermeulen  and Mr. Steven Renette in De Juristenkrant , entitled “Legislation at a trot, legal protection adrift?”. The piece is about the new powers of the social inspectorate in connection with non-criminal forms of discrimination.

 

2 Rush hour HR

The next edition will take place on October 11, 2022 Please note the date in your agenda. If there is a topic you would like to see discussed, please let us know!

 

3 Legislation – new rules regarding temporary unemployment from July 1, 2022

The temporary unemployment will look different from 1 July.
– Temporary unemployment due to Covid force majeure can no longer be used due to a lack of work.
– The employer must therefore again use the rules that apply to blue-collar and white-collar workers respectively (and in particular for white-collar workers he will have to provide proof that the company is in difficulties).
– The benefit for the employee must be determined again on the basis of 65% of the capped wage.
relaxations are being made to procedures and options until the end of this year.
These have not yet been converted into regulations, but will already be applied by the NEO. Here is an overview of the most important changes.

1. Workers
The period of 7 days off in advance for announcing temporary unemployment to the workers and to the NEO is increased to 3 days.
No validation book (paper or electronic) must be kept and no control card must be issued.
Instead of 4 weeks full suspension and 1 week return to work, it is also possible to provide for 8 weeks suspension followed by 2 weeks return to work or 12 weeks suspension followed by 3 weeks return to work.

2. White-collar workers
The period of 7 days off in advance for announcing temporary unemployment to white-collar workers and to the NEO is increased to 3 days - please note, the obligation to submit the file to the NEO 14 days prior to the day you receive the announcement wants to do to WN and RVA will be retained.
Also here: exemption from validation book and control card.
The decrease in production can also be proven compared to the corresponding quarter of 2019 .

Dirk Wijns, senior consultant
dirk.wijns@mploy.be

4 Legislation – “labor deal”

The “Labor Deal” was finally approved……… in the government. Now for parliament!

1. An announcement of an agreement does not constitute legislation

We already announced it in our Newsletter of March With the measures included, we would take an important step towards achieving an employment rate of 80% by 2030. The extensive communication from our government was happily picked up by the national media. Reason for us to warn you that the measures provided for in this law were not yet effectively in force.

On Friday, June 20, the government announced that it had reached a final agreement on the labor deal. The media communicated about it a little more cautiously this time.

Today we have a bill that can be introduced in Parliament. The ambition is for Parliament to give the green light to this bill before the summer recess (i.e. by July 20 at the latest). After which it can be published in the Belgian Official Gazette and the measures provided for may come into effect a few days later.

2. An overview of the measures provided for in the bill

The draft law contains various measures that are mainly aimed at employees who are already active in the labor market. Below you will find a summary of the most important points. We will certainly come back to it once the texts have actually been approved.

– Possibility for the employee to submit a request to work his full-time working week on 4 days in a four-day week or in a varying regime;

– The obligation for the employer to communicate the work schedule that will apply to a part-time employee with a variable hour schedule 7 working days in advance; certain existing exceptions may be retained;

– The “right” to disconnect in companies with more than 20 employees;

– An individual right to training days at the expense of the employer: 3 days in 2022; 4 days in 2023 and 5 days from 2024;

– A relaxation of the rules for the introduction of night work in E-commerce, so that the veto of just 1 trade union is no longer sufficient;

– The establishment of a number of specific criteria that allow to determine whether a person employed in the platform economy is bound by an employment contract or is active as a self-employed person (a rebuttable presumption is created) and the extension of industrial accident insurance to self-employed platform workers ;

– Creating a framework that makes it possible for an employee whose notice period has expired to already perform part of this notice with a new employer or use it to follow “employability-enhancing measures”.

Dirk Wijns, senior consultant
dirk.wijns@mploy.be

 

5 Case law – manifestly unreasonable dismissal

Manifestly unreasonable dismissal – a nice extra compensation or a cat in a poke?

The procedures in which a disgruntled employee claims compensation for manifestly unreasonable dismissal are no longer exceptions. If the employee is of the opinion that his dismissal had nothing to do with his behavior or attitude or with the needs of the company or institution and that a normal and reasonable employer would never have dismissed him, he can claim compensation for manifestly unreasonable demand dismissal (collective agreement no. 109 National Labor Council). This compensation amounts to between 3 and 17 weeks' wages, depending on the "degree" of manifest unreasonableness of the dismissal: the more manifestly unreasonable the dismissal, the higher the compensation.

However, when concluding collective labor agreement no. 109, the social partners did not provide the labor courts and tribunals with any guidelines regarding determining the amount of compensation for manifestly unreasonable dismissal. Once the judge rules that the dismissal is manifestly unreasonable, he must therefore determine - according to his own criterion - how manifestly unreasonable the dismissal is and how much compensation the employee will receive. The recent trend that seems to be developing in this area is that judges use the minimum amount (3 weeks' salary) as the “base”. If the employee believes that the dismissal is so manifestly unreasonable that a higher compensation is appropriate, he must prove this. Matters such as high seniority, an excellent reputation, not hearing the employee beforehand, etc. have already been accepted in the past in order to be awarded higher compensation. The Antwerp Labor Court ruled in this sense in judgments of June 14, 2022 and January 12, 2021. Other case law also goes in this direction: Liège Labor Court June 15, 2016, Brussels Labor Court September 7, 2016, Ghent Labor Court November 7, 2016.

Where the compensation for arbitrary dismissal used to be a lump sum of 6 months' wages, the employee now apparently has to make do with a lot less.