Proposition 50K1653

Projet de loi sur le principe de non-discrimination en faveur des travailleurs avec un contrat de travail à durée déterminée.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Feb. 22, 2002

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive work anti-discriminatory measure temporary employment

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

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Discussion ¶

April 17, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, my report will be brief.

On the 12th and 19th of March, you gave us an introductory presentation on the project to transpose the Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the CES, UNICE and CEEP Framework Agreement on fixed-term work.

This European Social Partners Framework Agreement aims to improve the quality of part-time work and prevent abuse of successive contracts.

Member States are therefore invited to transpose these provisions. The scheduled date was July 10, 2001. The request for an opinion was transmitted to the National Labour Council on 17 November 1999 and the opinion was given on 15 March 2001. We are therefore not responsible for this delay, Madame the Vice-Prime Minister, since we have had to wait for this opinion.

The government adopted this bill in the summer of 2001. The State Council issued its opinion in December 2001, hence six additional months of waiting. There are no special remarks of the State Council except on the equal treatment between men and women provided for in the law of 7 May 1999.

As regards working conditions, the law of 7 May 1999 already conferred specific competence on labour courts. That is why this competence should not be provided in the bill that deals with us.

The text of the law is limited to introducing the principle of non-discrimination into our legislation. The employer is obliged to inform fixed-term workers about the possibilities of vacant jobs in the company and thus to enable them to increase their chances of occupying a permanent job.

The Council of Ministers will remain vigilant on the possible subsequent impact of the Directive on other legislation and on the work undertaken by the social partners in the Interprofessional Agreement 2001-2002, which deals with the organization of work and aims to meet a double objective: the economic imperatives of enterprises, on the one hand, and the collective and individual aspirations of workers, on the other.

In the discussion, it was asked why the government did not take into account the remarks of the State Council. The Minister replied that a commission of social criminal law was recently established and that it will examine or will examine how to ensure coherence with the binding force to be given to all social provisions. In the current state of affairs, it is necessary to stick to the proposed text, in particular since it concerns workers with respect to whom labour courts are already competent in case of dispute pursuant to Article 578 of the Judicial Code. It should be clarified that the directive does not cover temporary work and is therefore not included in this project. The European social partners consider that a similar framework agreement would be necessary for temporary work.

Article 1 of the draft was adopted by the Social Affairs Committee with 10 votes and 4 abstentions; Article 2, after amendment suggested by the Chairman M. Wauters, amendment of concordancy between the Dutch text and the French text, was adopted unanimously as well as articles 3 to 5 and the whole project.

Here is the report on this bill.