"Campaign against social dumping" - Goal-oriented inspections announced

For the "Campaign against social dumping", the social inspectors of the department "Supervision of social laws" will in the coming months undertake priority actions. Such actions will mainly focus on so-called social dumping" by foreign companies, foreign transport companies, subcontractors and abuses linked to temporary work.

The following actions are planned:

2,000 inspections targeting foreign companies. Here the aim is to check compliance with the regulations governing working conditions (remuneration, work time ...) by foreign companies which undertake work in Belgium using their own personnel.

1,800 inspections focussed on temporary work. The social inspectors will concentrate on the equal treatment and the remuneration of the temporary workers. In the event of serious violations, the recognition of a temporary work agency may be withdrawn.

In the transport sector, the supervision of foreign subcontractors with "cheap" drivers is being extended and inspections with respect to the bypassing of the provisions concerning cabotage (transport by which the place of loading and unloading are both located on Belgian territory) are being extended.

Once the executive decrees regarding the joint liability of the fellow contracting party and the principal for the payment of the wages and the electronic presence registration at the dockyards are published, the inspectors will examine this matter.

Finally, the illegal posting of workers will be approached much more severely by targeted inspections of providers of "cheap" labour.

> Action point:

The social inspectors have extensive competences. The announced give companies from now on the opportunity to verify whether their activities comply with the legal requirements. For work undertaken by subcontractors, we refer to our Newsflashes of 04/03/2013 and 29/03/2013 .