Voting rights for your temporary agency workers? Start mapping them as of 1 August 2019.
For the social elections of 2020, the legislator has provided that temporary agency workers will have voting rights in your company if they meet the seniority conditions that will apply as of
1 August 2019.
Start mapping your temporary agency workers as of 1 August 2019.
In order to be eligible to vote, the temporary agency worker must meet a double seniority condition that must be fulfilled during two reference periods that run before and after day X:
1. In the period from 1 August 2019 up to and including the date on which the election date must be posted (i.e., day X, which falls within the period from 11 February 2020 up to and including 24 February 2020, depending on your election date), the temporary agency worker must be employed for either three continuous months or, in case of interrupted periods of employment, for a total of at least 65 working days.
However, according to FPS Employment’s online brochure (in French or Dutch), this first period runs until day X-1 (which falls within the period of 10 February 2020 up to and including 23 February 2020, depending on your election date). This interpretation departs from the literal legal text. We therefore recommend that you take into account the two reference periods.
According to FPS Employment, you should apply the count of 65 individual working days if there is an actual interruption. Normal days of inactivity, Sundays and public holidays do not constitute an actual interruption. According to FPS Employment, this means that there is an uninterrupted period of employment in case of consecutive weekly contracts that are always only interrupted by a weekend. These weekly contracts therefore fall under the first-mentioned calculation hypothesis of “three continuous months”.
2. In the period from day X up to and including the 13th day preceding the elections (i.e., day X+77, which falls within the period from 28 April 2020 up to and including 11 May 2020, depending on your election date), the temporary agency worker must be employed for a total of at least 26 working days.
However, according to FPS Employment’s online brochure (in French or Dutch), this second period runs until day X+76 (this falls within the period from 27 April 2020 up to and including 10 May 2020, depending on your election date). This interpretation departs from the literal legal text. Therefore, it is best that you take into account the two reference periods.
For the calculation of working days, the law does not provide a pro rata rule. According to FPS Employment, a day during which the temporary agency worker is employed for only three hours, for instance, will count as a (full) working day.
All temporary agency workers are eligible for this. This is, therefore, different from what applies for the calculation of the average employment threshold (50/100 workers), for which temporary agency workers only count if they do not replace a permanent worker whose execution of the employment contract has been suspended.
All this concerns the employment of the temporary agency worker within the legal entity of the user or within the technical business unit of the user, if there are several legal entities.
Action point
Start mapping all temporary agency workers who are employed by you from 1 August 2019. When temporary agency workers meet the seniority conditions detailed above, they will be eligible to vote in your company on day Y.
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