Newsflash
Social elections
Collective employment relations

On 20 December 2022, the social partners in the National Labour Council (NLC) rendered their advice on amendments to the social elections procedure proposed by the Federal Public Service for Employment (FPS).

All this still needs to be translated into legislation. All in all, there are limited adjustments. We list the most important points for you in this newsflash. Of course, as always, we will keep you informed as soon as there are any new developments.

 

  • Election date (Day Y). The NLC proposes that the social elections take place from 13 to 26 May 2024. This means that the kick-off of the election process (day X-60) will be from 15 to 28 December 2023. It is best to check now which date best suits your company. In addition to the election date itself, some other dates are also important to consider, such as day X (the number of employees + temporary workers on that date determines the number of mandates) or day X-30 (date of the start of the hidden protection period), or day X+80 (distribution of the convening letters). In companies employing staff with children in French-speaking schools, the trade unions will likely pay extra attention to the choice of election date and procedural calendar (as the French-speaking schools’ spring holiday runs from 29 April to 12 May 2024).
  • Voting rights for temporary workers. Since the last election, if you make use of temporary workers, they are entitled to vote at your company. For the 2020 social election, temporary workers had to meet a complex double seniority requirement. The NLC advocates a simplification. From now on, a temporary worker would be allowed to vote at the user-company if he/she has performed 32 working days (with or without an interruption) between 1 November 2023 and 31 January 2024. To allow the employer-user to optimally compile the voter lists by day X (which falls in the period from 13 to 26 February 2024), the NLC requests that temporary employment agencies would be obliged to provide the employer-user with the necessary data (surname, first names, date of birth, status of the temporary worker, postal address for the convening letter to be sent to, number of days worked at the user, etc.) within 5 days of this reference period. In addition, if there is an agreement in the company on day X about electronic voting, the agency should also provide the national register numbers and e‑mail addresses of the temporary workers.
  • Electronically convening voters. For many companies such modification would be more than welcome. The FPS wishes to extend the possibility of convening voters digitally. The NLC is also in favour of this if, on day X, the Works Council (or in its absence, the Health & Safety Committee, or the trade union delegation) unanimously agrees. Moreover, convening digitally is only possible for employees who have a professional e-mail address from the employer and who have access to a computer provided to them by the employer at their usual place of work (for teleworkers, this is where they work). If not, being convened on paper would remain the rule.
  • Candidate lists. Some changes are proposed by the FPS and are being followed by the NLC. For instance, the model form to amend the candidate list after a complaint will be clarified. Furthermore, the FPS proposes to provide that an employee who withdraws his/her candidacy in time may only be replaced if he/she was part of the personnel on day X-30. Finally, the NAR itself proposes that, when indicating the gender of candidates on the candidate lists, it should also be possible that the name is followed by the letter X (and thus not only M or F), and this according to the choice the candidate has indicated to the union.
  • Electronic voting. The NLC calls for the security conditions to be legally confirmed for software companies offering an electronic voting system or to further detail this in the official brochure of the FPS. The NLC also states that if a cloud application is to be used, this would have to meet specific security conditions.
  • Suspension of election procedure. Companies may suspend their ongoing election procedure if they face significant temporary unemployment or if a strike occurs between day X and day Y. The FPS wants to make some minor clarifications in the Act, e.g., the method of calculating temporary unemployment and determining the end-date of the suspension.
  • Web application and template forms. The FPS envisages some improvements to the web application, as well as a modification of certain template forms.
  • Correction of a material error in the election results. The NLC follows the proposal of the FPS that in case of a purely material error in the minutes concerning the election results, the parties can correct this themselves, without having to go to the labour court first.

Action point

Please visit us regularly at www.socialelections.be. This website contains very useful information about the 2024 social elections and will help you make them successful. The site is updated regularly. Through this link, you can access our brochure on the services we provide regarding social elections.