Newsflash
Social elections

The social partners have reached an agreement at national level to suspend the social elections procedure. The details of the suspension and its consequences still have to be regulated by law. In the meantime, according to FPS Employment, you may provisionally suspend the election procedure as from day X+36.

We will send you more details in another newsflash as soon as the law has been adopted.

The corona crisis threatens to jeopardise the smooth running of the social elections procedure. The social partners have therefore reached an agreement at national level to suspend the election procedures.

Although the details and the consequences of the suspension still have to be regulated by law, you may “freeze” the election procedure as from day X+36, according to FPS Employment. The time at which you will have to resume the procedure remains to be confirmed.

What does this mean for you?

  • All steps of the procedural calendar are provisionally postponed as from day X+36 until presumably after the summer of 2020. Consequently, you do not have to proceed with, for instance, the posting of the candidate lists, the composition of the polling stations, the drafting or handing over of the convening notices to the voters, the conclusion of an agreement on postal voting, updating the voters’ list.
  • The time limits for initiating proceedings before the labour tribunal are also suspended (e.g. to contest the candidate list because the eligibility conditions have not been respected or because a candidacy is deemed to be abusive).
  • Only if you have not received a single candidate list may you stop the election procedure entirely and already complete the formalities in this respect (posting of the message regarding termination and uploading this on the web application of FPS Employment).
  •  If you have received at least one candidate list (even if there is only one candidate), you must suspend the procedure as from day X+36. Changes can still be made to the candidate list (e.g. replacement of a candidate, withdrawal of a candidate, etc).
  • The employees on the current lists are protected (at least for the time being). It remains to be seen what arrangement will be made regarding a possible “extension” of the hidden protection period.
  • The employees on the candidate lists for 2016 continue to benefit from the protection until the installation of the newly elected bodies (autumn 2020).

Action point

Although the suspension of the election period still has to be confirmed by law, you may provisionally stop the election procedure as from day X+36. Only if not a single candidate list has been submitted may you stop the procedure definitively.

We will inform you as soon as the law has been adopted.