Projet de loi modifiant les lois relatives à la réparation des dommages résultant des maladies professionnelles, coordonnees le 3 juin 1970, en ce qui concerne la détermination du taux d'incapacité permanente des invalides après l'âge de 65 ans.
General information ¶
- Authors
-
Open Vld
Jacques
Germeaux
PS | SP Camille Dieu - Submission date
- May 26, 2004
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- incapacity for work occupational disease disability insurance
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB
Party dissidents ¶
- Pieter De Crem (CD&V) voted to reject.
- Pieter De Crem (CD&V) voted to reject.
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
March 29, 2007 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
President Herman De Croo ⚙
The rapporteur, Ms. Maggie De Block, refers to the written report.
Camille Dieu PS | SP ⚙
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, this bill of which I am the author and to which our college Jacques Germeaux associated – which is why I thank him – has experienced a long gestation in the Social Affairs Committee, on the one hand, because the problem is complex and, on the other, because it came into the competence of several ministers. In addition, before reaching an acceptable compromise for the parties concerned, we were confronted with budgetary implications for which the government was in any case unprepared.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind the Government that my political group considers that compensation for damage resulting from a work accident or occupational disease is an inviolable right of the beneficiaries. From the outset and even though the repair was fragmentary, these benefits were assimilated to compensation and not to a replacement income. Over time, it can be found that successive governments – I will speak of the Martens-Gol government in 1983 and the Dehaene government in the global plan in 1994 – did not respect the philosophy that led to the adoption of compensation laws, which was also shared by professional insurers and is still so today.
I will not return to the program law before the summer of 2006 which, for budgetary reasons, legalized retroactively the rulings of 1983.
For us, this problem must necessarily find a satisfactory solution in the next legislature.
A common law accident is not subject to any restriction as to the cumulation of the compensation paid to him by a private insurance with any other income. On the other hand, a work accident or victim of occupational illness sees part of his repair confiscated when he retires. Let us take an example. A worker victim of the Ghislenghien disaster will see his pension limited when he reaches the age of 65. On the other hand, a victim passing with the same degree of injury will not see his compensation limited. If anyone finds this normal, let them come and explain it to me.
My bill was obviously not intended to reinstate the cumulation of permanent disability benefits with pension or survival pensions. The budget impact would have been such that this proposal had no chance of succeeding. I have therefore chosen to proceed in stages, with the ultimate goal, however, to restore in the long run the full rights of those who paid for years of work in very difficult conditions with their health.
With this bill, we attempted, at first, to re-establish the socio-economic factors whose abolition in 1994 had only affected victims of a occupational illness.
This means that the work accidents or the public sector had in no way suffered this kind of damage. This measure of 1994, affecting only victims of occupational illness, clearly created a second injustice towards them. This is exactly what I wanted to resolve.
As we had to take into account budgetary impacts, the initial proposal was to keep these socio-economic factors only for this category of new retirees, i.e. those who are 65 years old after the date of entry into force of the law. This proposal then created discrimination against those who were 65 years old before the date of entry into force of the law, if so that it can be voted.
To avoid the risk of discrimination and recourse to the Arbitration Court, we chose an amendment which – I must say – was supported by the members of the Social Affairs Committee present here today. I thank them again. We have chosen a compromise. This compromise was the subject of a discussion in the Council of Ministers, which was held in Louvain on 17 and 18 March. This Extraordinary Council of Ministers accepted this amendment submitted on my own proposal.
What is the proposal? In 1998, Social Affairs Minister Magda de Galan introduced an amendment to the 1994 law, increasing the rate of physical disability of workers by a certain percentage according to their degree of disability. Thus, for workers in the category whose incapacity rate was between 36 and 50%, Ms. de Galan had granted an additional 1%. The proposal that is now on the table adds one, so it is 2%. For those who were in the 50 to 65% range, Magda de Galan had introduced a 2% correction. We add two; we double, it will make 4%. For those who are above 65% and who had, in 1998, an additional 3%, they will see that percentage doubling and going to 6%.
On the same occasion, we create a new category: all those who have been victims of disability, occupational disease and who are between 1 and 35% will be granted an additional 1%.
This means that it affects thousands of people, thousands of families and that all victims of occupational disease, who have already reached the age of 65 or who will reach that age after 1 June 2007, will see their annual allowances increase.
Dear colleagues, the compromise voted in the committee does not provide a substantial solution to the elimination of socio-economic factors and obviously does not address the problem of limiting the cumulation of a pension and a permanent disability allowance, whether it is work-related accidents or victims of occupational disease. This is an essentially pragmatic improvement but will positively, sometimes significantly, influence the daily life of thousands of families.
I hope that we will have the opportunity to return to this issue in the next legislature.