Proposition 50K2266

Projet de loi portant des dispositions diverses relatives aux élections sociales.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Feb. 5, 2003

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

work occupational safety works council workers' representation

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Abstained from voting

FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Pieter De Crem (CD&V) abstained from voting.
• Jean-Pierre Grafé (LE) abstained from voting.
• Marcel Hendrickx (Vooruit) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

March 12, 2003 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, the project we are discussing this afternoon concerns various provisions regarding social elections.

In her introductory presentation, the Deputy Prime Minister reminds us that 2004 will be a year of social elections. This will affect 3,000 business boards with an average of more than 100 employees and 5,000 prevention and protection committees for companies with an average of more than 50 employees.

The categories of workers are represented and a provision of legislation recommends ensuring a representation of women proportionate to their digital importance in companies, which is worth emphasizing.

The procedure lasts 150 days. Therefore, our assembly must do everything to ensure that the various companies are in possession of the necessary regulatory provisions, so that no incident occurs in the course of this procedure.

No later than ten days before the election, the employer is responsible for calling the voters and sending the ballots to those who will eventually vote by correspondence.

The rights of the board of directors are of three types: a right to information, a right to issue one or more opinions and, exceptionally, a decision-making power. These rights shall be applied unanimously by the members present at the meetings of this business board. The information given to the business board must enable it to act with full knowledge of the facts in order to carry out the various powers assigned.

The main task of the prevention committee is to investigate and propose all means to promote the well-being of workers in the performance of their tasks. by

Here are some figures about this: there are 5,000 institute bodies involving 576,532 women and more than 800,000 men. This makes more than 30,000 effective mandates to be distributed among trade union organisations in the following proportions: slightly more than 35% for the FGTB, 59% for the CSC and 6% for the CGSLB.

As required by the procedure, the Minister referred to the National Labour Council with a request for an opinion on certain problems that arose during the 2000 social elections. This council gave a unanimous opinion, in particular on the assimilation of researchers of the FNRS exercising a mandate in different academic institutions to a worker status. This is Article 2 of the project. The National Labour Council also mandated trade union organizations to submit lists and approved a series of technical adjustments to both legislations in order to obtain legal references, such as taking into account the old age for researchers of the National Science Research Fund.

The particular problem of the situation of the security chiefs of prevention advisors, who could be considered by companies as members of the management staff or by trade union organisations as their activists, was also addressed in the opinion of the National Labour Council. The project puts them in a position of arbitrator and I think that is to be emphasized. The refraining presumption relating to the merger of legal entities and the replacement of members and, in particular, of supplementary members was also not omitted.

The Minister reminded us in the committee of the urgency of the adoption of this project, the social partners must be ready now for this next election.

Then, as usual, there was the general discussion and your servant made a series of remarks. First, the fact that some time ago, the French pro-homal elections took place and that they were characterized by a rise in abstinence. In social life, however, the holding of social elections is desirable from the point of view of the debate of ideas. The second reflection I had made was whether, in the end, we could not, as is the case with political elections, reach the introduction of the obligation to vote. Another point raised was the automation of elections, on which the minister replied that this would be done at the expense of companies. Finally, the last reflection concerned the social elections in the public service.

Ms D'hondt regretted that initiatives were not taken earlier to ensure appropriate training for democratic social elections in the public sector. She stressed that observations had been recalled in relation to the National Labour Council. Finally, she asked why the government did not meet the suggestions made in National Labour Council Opinion 960.

Ms. De Block asked why the minister did not join the interpretation advocated by the employer organisations and why she followed rather the trade union interpretation.

Finally, the Minister responds to the various speakers and speakers and points out that it is extremely important to combat the phenomenon of abstinence. The best way is to hold substantive debates, not only during the election campaign period but also at other very specific moments of the life of companies or administrations, in the different workplaces.

I forgot to mention that I also spoke about labour courts. The Minister indicated that, pursuant to the separation of powers, the Minister cannot give a recommendation to the labour courts for them to give their opinions and judgments within the necessary time. Regarding the public service, the Minister replied that there should be further reflection. Regarding the concept of the operating unit, it is necessary to be able to adapt the situation to the realities of the company’s field. It is not always easy, in the case of multinational companies, to have one and the same corporate council and several councils on protection and prevention at work. Here is the discussion.

As for the discussion of articles and the vote, the first article was adopted by nine votes for and three abstentions. Articles 2 to 12 were all adopted by 11 votes and one abstention, and the entire draft was adopted by 11 votes and one abstention.

Finally, to conclude this report, I would like to thank the services of our House for their valuable collaboration, as well as the whole committee for the confidence it honors me by regularly appointing me as a rapporteur. Thank you, dear colleagues, for your attention.

Seven committees are currently sitting simultaneously. I remind my colleagues from the Social Affairs Committee that after the three so-called social projects, the committee will resume its activities in Room 1.

Following these three drafts, the Social Affairs Committee continues in Hall 1. There are six other committees currently in session.

I would like to intervene very briefly. The CD&V group has approved this bill in a committee because it is indeed an important matter to timely translate the arrangements for the upcoming social elections into legislation. In this general discussion, I would only like to repeat very clearly what I said in the committee. We regret that this opportunity was not once again used to organize democratic social elections in the public sector as well.

Second, in this plenary session, I would like to underline the position of the legal sector — the courts and the judiciary. The Minister has given a response that can be found in the report. In a unanimous opinion in the National Labour Council, the social partners have explicitly called for a different arrangement to be adopted with regard to the jurisdiction of the courts than that currently contained in the draft law. Mrs. Minister responded that there are many objections in this regard in the judiciary, but I think that the social world — which has the most experience with the smooth running of social elections and the problems that may be associated with them, in particular with regard to the decisions on what a technical business unit is — may have been best placed to know which court should decide on those matters.

Things are what they are. We did not intend to vote against this bill, but I think there are two missed opportunities, on the one hand, for the public sector and, on the other hand, for the designation of the competent courts.

I would like to comment on the last point. It is true that we had a discussion in the committee on the basis of the unanimous opinion of the social partners who made a proposal for the competence of the labour court that could be addressed for issues relating to social elections.

Of course, I did not say that I rejected the views of the social partners, but that there were concrete difficulties. Currently, within the framework of the Judicial Code, as it exists today, a general derogation from the rules of territorial jurisdiction would be necessary. For example, imagine a company with several seats. There could be protests in several regions. What to do then? The social partners say, for example, that the solution is clear: from the moment a court is brought one day, all other courts subsequently brought would give up in favor of the first court. This seems to be a good solution but, in the current state of transplant work, for example, it is not possible to know when a first judge was arrested. This example alone shows that there are difficulties, only on the material level, but also and more fundamentally on the level of the judicial language.

There are therefore several difficulties. Justice must be able to deal with the matter. Dialogue must be established between social partners and justice managers in order to find a solution.