Proposition 51K2687

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 4 août 1996 relative au bien-être des travailleurs lors de l'exécution de leur travail, en ce qui concerne les procédures judiciaires.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP MR Open Vld Vooruit Purple Ⅰ

Submission date

Sept. 19, 2006

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

work civil procedure violence sexual violence

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 30, 2006 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Van Lombeek-Jacobs will speak first as a rapporteur and subsequently on behalf of her group.

Thank you Mr. President. Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, our committee examined these bills at its meetings of 24 October and 14 November 2006.

In his introductory presentation, the Minister of Employment indicated that the two present bills are based, on the one hand, on the conclusions of the assessment report of the SPF Employment, Work and Social Consultation, which the Social Affairs Committee discussed on 7 July 2004 and, on the other hand, on the finding of certain legal uncertainties that the application of the law has shown during its four years of existence. Overall, the goal is primarily to strengthen the goal of the 2002 law, i.e. the prevention of excessive behavior.

I refer to the written report for the details of the proposed changes. However, the main lines can be summarized as follows:

1) to enhance primary prevention;

2) to strengthen the status of the trusted person;

3) give priority to internal procedures rather than external procedures when it comes to settling a conflict;

4) clarify the means of the court;

5) redefine the limits of protection against dismissal;

6) clarify access to pieces and information.

On this new section, the opinion of the Privacy Protection Commission was requested and this opinion (Opinion No. 22 of 12 July 2006) appears at the end of documents 2686 and 2687.

Ms. De Block exposed the contents of the bills she is the author of and which were attached to the bills. These are the documents 1492 and 1718. The first bill provides for a two-year review of the law of 11 June 2002. The second aims to adapt the principle of the reversal of the burden of proof so that the legal arrangement is more consistent with the practice of the shared burden.

During the discussion of the draft law, Mr. Drèze estimated that although these included significant and positive advances, some aspects remain problematic despite all. Thus, for example, the legal position of the trust person is referred to a hypothetical royal decree while, in its opinion, the State Council considered that in order to comply with the principles governing the relationship between the legislative power and the executive power, it was up to the legislator himself, to fix the essential elements of the legal situation of the trust person.

Based on the Council’s position on equal opportunities between men and women, as well as on the ambiguity of the statement of reasons, the interviewer asked whether it was not appropriate to introduce protection against dismissal, limited to the exercise of the task of a person of trust.

This status was also discussed by Ms. D'hondt, Ms. De Block and your rapporteur.

With regard to the protection against dismissal of the complainant, Mr. Drèze questioned the absence of any protection during the informal phase and, therefore, questioned whether protection was not indicated as long as the informal phase was followed by the filing of a reasoned complaint, in order to avoid abuses always possible.

The reduction of the role of the Committee on Prevention and Protection at Work (CPPT), whose consent will now be required only for measures relating to internal procedures when acts of harassment are ⁇ , constitutes a regression according to the interviewer. The proposed restriction would be contradictory to the general economy of the bill which is precisely to emphasize the prevention against harassment and violence at work. Furthermore, such a restriction would not be justified in a matter as sensitive as that which we are dealing with today.

The speaker submitted an amendment aiming to return to the previous situation, namely the prior agreement of the Committee on all preventive measures (amendment No. 6). Catherine Ashton and D'Hondt submitted an amendment having the same scope (amendment no. 4).

Referring to the judgment of 21 October 2004 of the Brussels Labour Court and to the material situation of the Internal Service for the Prevention and Protection of SPF, Mr. Drèze deplored the fact that the government was committed to correcting legislation shortcomings while not assuming its role in its own public services.

Your rapporteur recalled that, for his group, a general revision of the foundations of the law is in no way necessary, but that it is necessary to act where dysfunctions are found. The questions of the psychosocial burden in the enterprise, the relevance or non-relevance of the inclusion of prevention against harassment and, consequently, the added value that such integration will bring to the fight against abusive behavior have been successively addressed.

Constating that the bill simplifies the different means of action available to the worker, the PS group expressed satisfaction because the government has demonstrated pragmatism and consistency in the matter, promoting the normal course of the complaint as much as possible while refusing a too strong hierarchization of the different possible ways of appeal. Thus, I cite the example of the possibility for the labour judge to suspend the examination of the case when the internal procedure has been neglected.

Like Ms. De Block, your rapporteur regretted that the appointment of a trusted person remains optional while it is a very effective way to resolve conflicts, deal with actions that do not fall within the scope of the law and avoid judicial proceedings.

Mrs D'hondt welcomed the fact that the bill met some objections made by her group when adopting the initial law. Several changes are, she said, positive, such as the return of the inspection to its basic tasks, the new regime of acts of violence committed by third parties, the role of the person of trust or the removal of the obligation to apply for reintegration. It insisted that prevention constitutes the best protection of workers, although internal procedures inevitably have limited effectiveness. There were reservations on the number of authorizations given to the King. With regard to the designation of a trusted person, the interviewer raised the question of the meaning of that designation when consensus could not be reached.

Several speakers also asked questions about the cost for the employer in relation to the psychological support of victims of third-party violence.

In his responses, the Minister first recalled some figures demonstrating the importance of preventive intervention in order to dismantle situations that may prove irreversible if they are treated late. This is the first issue that this bill should address.

A two-year review of the law would be a too heavy burden, but the administration nevertheless follows the case-law on a daily basis. Regarding the reversal of the burden of proof, the Minister noted that it was not already complete since the complainant is obliged to justify his complaint. The reduced role of the CPPT is justified, according to him, by the fact that experience shows that, in many cases, the Committee’s prior agreement on preventive measures is difficult to obtain. Efficiency therefore pledges that we do not move too far from the traditional competences assigned to the committee.

As regards the status of the trusted person, protection against dismissal would dissuade employers from designating such a person and, furthermore, the role of the trusted person should not be confused with that of the prevention counselor.

Furthermore, protection of complainants and witnesses during the informal phase would involve the risk of procedural abuse and could even have a detrimental effect on the use of the informal route.

Finally, the Minister clarified that the obligation incumbent on the employer to accompany on the curative level workers victims of violence committed by third parties, and therefore to bear the cost, is explained by the nature of the work that involves a risk of violence. This is without prejudice to the application of other legal provisions and the rules of civil liability.

Some articles have been the subject of additional questions by the members of the committee. If you wish, I will refer to this in the written report.

Several amendments have been submitted. Three amendments to the European Directives on the fight against discrimination filed by the Government have been adopted by the Commission (amendments 1, 2 and 3).

The entire first bill was adopted by 14 votes and 1 abstention. The second draft, which was not the subject of any observations, was also adopted by 14 votes and 1 abstinence. Since the proposed laws have since become obsolete, the committee has agreed on some technical corrections. This is the report of the committee.

I will now speak on behalf of my group.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, on behalf of the PS Group, I would like to briefly return to these two bills that bring considerable improvements in the fight against harassment and violence in the workplace. As I said in the committee, our group was not demanding a legislative reform, but rather a series of adjustments to increase the effectiveness and legal certainty of all actors involved in phenomena that, it should be recalled, are totally unacceptable in a society that continually promotes for workers the right to safety and dignity in the performance of their work.

In recent years, the concept of harassment has emerged in the social field and then in the legal field with the 2002 Act. What is most remarkable is the evolution in the recognition of this phenomenon. This changed from the status of a problem suffered by a supposedly unadapted minority to that of a major problem of health and safety at work, which required the intervention of the legislature.

The first victory in collective awareness of the phenomenon was to be able to name the unacceptable, to raise awareness of the victims, but also of each stakeholder within the enterprise and that, so that we do not regain our capacity to indignate only when facts get worse to the point that they appear on the public stage, relayed and amplified by the media.

Certain aspects of harassment are probably inherent in the early forms of collective work, but should it be integrated into the psychosocial burden caused by work? We are quite skeptical of this orientation, which appears primarily to respond to the criticism issued on the ground, namely the difficulty of obtaining analytical instruments specific to the problem of harassment.

The question is somewhat superfetatory, it seems to us, since the guiding principle of the dynamic risk management system must take into account the interaction between the different areas of well-being and therefore, for example, between psychosocial burden and harassment.

Psychosocial burden in the company can be a cause of harassment, but it does not exhaust the phenomenon, which should be named for what it is, namely a process of destruction of the person and not an extreme form of work-related stress.

Certainly, the risk of dilution in a globalized approach is marginal. There are serious signs and, in addition, the bill reinforces the minimum concrete measures that the employer must take. However, the symbolic aspect of the law is somewhat reduced. It is a pity.

The project under consideration has as its primary objective to strengthen the preventive aspect of the law and to combat everything that can hinder its proper functioning. This is an excellent purpose. While the lawmaker’s intention in 2002 was not so much to insist on procedures – no matter how important they are – as to allow companies to develop genuine prevention strategies, the evaluation of the law helped to highlight that the goal was not always achieved. It should be remembered that the use of a procedure is already, in itself, a failure of prevention. If, on the other hand, it turns out to be ineffective or misguided, it is obvious that the behaviors may anchor in the duration and irreversibly aggravate the consequences. This is precisely what we need to avoid, and the project responds to it for the most essential.

The limitation of the powers of the Committee on Prevention and Protection at Work was widely raised during committee discussions. There are pro and contra in this redefinition closer to the usual powers of the committees, but it is still that the prior agreement is ⁇ ined – and rightly – regarding measures relating to the rights and duties of workers.

The content of a trusted person’s status, the maintenance or not of the simple possibility to designate such a person, and the question of the place of such a person within or outside the enterprise, constitute such problems that are difficult to resolve. Your option, Mr. Minister, was to make sure that this person must be a member of the company’s staff when it is recruited to an external prevention service. We support this measure that should help prevent role confusion. It remains that, when the specialist counselor is internal to the company, the rule does not play, so that one can wonder whether, in fact, the goal of no longer considering the trusted person as the assistant of the prevention counselor will be achieved.

Finally, the PS Group believes that the objective of simplifying possible remedies for persons who consider themselves victims of harassment is achieved. Our fear was that a pyramid structure would be much too rigid and harmful to victims when victims are faced with procedures that don’t work or that don’t work well. The means of action therefore remain open in a device that promotes what is called the "normal course of the complaint". The redistribution of the activities of the Labour Inspection to its basic tasks and the right for the labour judge to suspend the examination of the case when the internal procedure has not been exploited represent two important elements that contribute to this objective.

In conclusion, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, this is a good bill that the government asks us to approve. Certainly, not everything is – and will never be – perfect in a matter as difficult to transpose to the legal level as that of harassment and violence in the workplace but already, we can say that the legal instruments are refined and must contribute to a better prevention that, ultimately, will only be successful if the actors show dynamism on the ground. You can count on the support of our group.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the extensive report. Since several interventions have already been cited in the committee, I will be more concise.

Mr. Minister, it is not unknown to you that we all agree on the basis of the law of 2002. She has made workplace bullying discussable on the workplace and has the merit that the design is there now. As to its completion, we were less in agreement with your predecessor at the time, Mrs. Onkelinx. We also discussed this with Mrs. Van Brempt and her successor Mrs. Van den Bossche.

What are for us the delicate points that remain despite the adjustment? I repeat that we are positive about the adjustment. More emphasis was placed on the preventive loop, a trust person can do his work on the workplace without any complaints, and so on. The two elements that are essential to us, however, are the following.

First, – you know this is one of my dada’s – the reverse burden of proof, which, according to the employers, was included in the draft so that there would be something possible in a complaint when there was no prevention done by the employer. What is shown now? The preventive gap is once again strengthened and yet the reverse burden of evidence remains in it. You can now say that it is a shared burden of proof because the nature of the complaint must be formulated in this way, and so on, but still there is a lot of debate on the workplace.

Secondly, the evaluation of the law is important to us. According to you, such an adjustment would cause too much administrative burden, but without the evaluation, which we initially allowed to incorporate into the law, this adjustment might, for example, not have been made. It has taken two years before the evaluation could be made and it now takes another two years before an amendment of that law takes place. This adjustment is needed! It is good, as stated in the opinion, that the problem is taken out of the taboo sphere. It is good that it can be discussed. It is good that trusted persons can be designated. In fact, there is a lot of dementia in the workplace. It is – and I have also admitted that in the committee – it has been so that it has led to few legal proceedings; you proved that by means of numerical material. Originally, there was fear that this would lead to many lawsuits, and that has not proved so.

However, there is a lot of commotion in the workplace.

Initially, in 2002, the VLD asked Ms. Onkelinx if she was sure that this would not result in additional costs for employers. She answered denying. Now it turns out that if there are many complaints, it becomes a costly cost for the employer.

Mr. Minister, this bill gives the VLD a double feeling. On the one hand, we are pleased that you have been willing to do all the assistance. On the other hand, we continue to sit on our hunger regarding the reverse burden of evidence and evaluation.

However, if we are very positive people, the VLD will approve the draft.

This bill has already been debated extensively in the committee. Therefore, I will essentially focus on one or the other of its flaws, which we believe deserve a few amendments. I present three of them today in plenary session and, as I regularly do, I will present them as part of this speech.

But before addressing them, to be objective, I would like to mention that, in general, this bill presents a number of important and positive advances. It focuses on primary prevention. This is a good thing. Priority is given to internal procedures. It clarifies a number of points that should be in the law, such as the role of inspection and the court; the definitions of violence and harassment for example.

That said, I will focus on the three main gaps and inconsistencies of the project. First, the reduction of the role of the Committee on Prevention and Protection at Work in prevention. With the bill, the role of the CPPT is reduced. The agreement of the CPPT will only be necessary on the procedure to be established when acts of violence or harassment are ⁇ and will no longer be necessary on prevention measures, on the reception of victims, etc.

However, the explanation of the reasons ⁇ emphasizes the need to emphasize prevention. Thus, the exhibition mentions in particular: “The primary prevention of excessive behavior is not yet sufficiently developed. It has been found that the current law is rather experienced as repressive and that too little attention is paid to the prevention of excessive behavior (...) More emphasis should also be placed on primary prevention in the specific provisions relating to the prevention of excessive behavior.”

The reason for this approach presented by the government is simple: “When the company conducts an effective policy to prevent psychosocial burden, the risk of seeing excessive behavior occurs is reduced.”

Given this expressed desire to accentuate the prevention against harassment and the prevention at work, it is for us quite contradictory to reduce the role of the CPPT, whose essential mission is precisely to seek and propose all means and to actively contribute to everything undertaken to promote the well-being of workers in the execution of their work.

In violence and harassment, the collective commitment to prevention is even more important than in other areas of well-being at work. The requirement of a prior agreement of the CPPT on preventive measures is a major asset, as it involves the commitment of all relevant actors.

Furthermore, the CPPT agreement is a sign of greater transparency in the measures taken by the employer for the protection and prevention of problems of harassment at work. Therefore, I am proposing, on behalf of the CDH, a first amendment to Article 5 of the draft. This amendment aims to return to the previous situation, namely the CPPT’s prior agreement on all preventive measures. It should be noted that in any case, a solution is proposed in case no agreement is reached by the committee.

The second point we can agree on is the obligation to appeal in some cases to a person of internal trust to the company. In the case where an employer uses a prevention counselor from an external service for prevention and protection at work, the trust person must be part of the company’s staff if it employs more than twenty workers. The government’s desire to prioritize the recourse to a person of internal trust in the company is quite understandable and even desirable; indeed, a person of internal trust knows the company better and in this regard, he is better able to grasp the complexity and peculiarities of the problems that are exposed to him, and thus to fulfill his mission best.

However, in exceptional cases, it may be preferable for the trusted person to be external. This is the case, for example, of road work companies whose entire staff is continuously on the roads and in which an internal worker could not, in our opinion, optimally assume a mission of a trusted person, given that he would be absent most of the time. Therefore, we propose an amendment to Article 7 of the bill.

The third and last reservation concerns the status of the trusted person. Currently, trusted persons do not have protection against dismissal or unilateral change of their working conditions, unlike prevention advisors. Nevertheless, the law assessment report stated on page 36 that “all parties except the employer organisations at the CNT believe that trusted persons should benefit from special protection because they can be subjected to pressure from various sides.” In the explanation of the reasons for the bill, the government seems to want to incorporate this point. I quote a few extracts: page 4, “the new provisions aim to protect the autonomy of the trust person”; page 10, “the trust person must be able to act autonomously; this means that in the exercise of its function as a trust person, it must be independent from its own hierarchical superiors.”

In our view, in order to be fully consistent with this reasoning, i.e. to truly enable trusted persons to be autonomous and to enjoy independence from their superiors, they should be freed from the fear of dismissal that might arise as a result of the exercise of their work performed in the framework of their mission as trusted persons.

The role of this trusted person is primarily to welcome the complainants and to try as much as possible to conciliate the complainant and the accused. It has a role of conciliation and mediation. She must not make a judgment, but if, for example, the accused is her hierarchical superior, it can be delicate for her to ensure her role of conciliation in full autonomy. In such a situation, it would be better to guarantee them protection against dismissal. Of course, this protection would only apply in the context of its function as a person of trust. This option is specified in our Third Amendment.

Let us also note that, for its part, the Council for Equal Opportunities between Men and Women stands like us in favour of protection against dismissals for the trusted person.

In conclusion, it is recognized by everyone, both on the part of employers and workers, that problems of harassment and violence at work are extremely sensitive topics and that protection and prevention of these problems are essential and beneficial in all respects. Everyone has an interest in ensuring that the relationships between workers go well and that everything is done to prevent behaviour contrary to respect for the person. For this purpose, regulation plays a crucial role in framing this prevention and protection.

The present bill brings in this regard advances but also some imperfections in our view and even a step back with the reduction of the role of the Committee for the Prevention and Protection at Work, which is, however, in contradiction, I recall, with the exposition of the reasons of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, this draft law significantly changes the law of 2002. During the discussion of this bill in the committee, I have already said that we had insisted on the discussion of the law of 2002 and had also submitted the necessary amendments in order to put more emphasis on prevention in the law. This is exactly what this bill does. Indeed, more emphasis is placed on prevention in the context of protection against violence, harassment and unwanted sexual behavior.

We have approved this bill in the committee and we will also do so at the vote, later. There is a reservation that we have made in the committee. I will not spend so much attention or time here. We submitted an amendment to this issue in the committee that was voted down. Colleague Drèze sends again an amendment that we will of course gladly support. We deeply regret, Mr. Minister, the reduction of the role of the Committee on Protection and Prevention at Work. It goes from a decisive to a advisory role. We believe this is a downturn, an important beauty spot on this bill.

Decisions are taken as in the committee. In 2002, we called for more preventive emphasis. Four years later this happens. Hopefully it will not take four years before one realizes that reducing the role of the Committee for Protection and Prevention on the Work from a decision-making to a advisory power is a bad choice. This does not prevent us from approving this bill. We hope, Mr. Minister, that in the coming months, following the social consultation, you may return to this – in our opinion – wrong choice.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, in Europe, a general movement of awareness of the phenomenon of violence at work has developed in the last ten years. Belgium took part in this movement resolutely. The law of 11 June 2002 was ambitious; its evaluation in 2004 did not fail to pinch out a number of excesses that it was appropriate to correct.

To this end, I have personally submitted a bill with four objectives: first, that the recourse to a judicial procedure can only be performed as a supplement; second, that the common law of evidence be returned; second, that the mandatory and problematic mechanism of the reintroduction of the dismissed worker for the benefit of the generalization of the mechanism of compensation be removed; finally, that the system of sanction for the abuse of the law be strengthened.

The principles underlying this proposal and the MR group’s position in this regard are to put an emphasis on prevention but also on the accountability of the employer and workers. For us, the most effective approach is obviously the trust given to the head of bipartisan negotiation who makes the entire framework of working relations in Belgium. This approach should be developed primarily through concertation within the company. Only an integrated approach to well-being is wise. Indeed, a project on protecting workers from violence and moral or sexual harassment is only likely to succeed if it is structurally integrated into the overall management of the company.

It should be noted that the evaluation of the law favored the same concerns. It was very clearly stated that one of the limits of the 2002 Act was to develop a tendency to consider more and more conflicts, which should remain outside the scope of this legislation, as cases of excessive behavior. Therefore, there is the risk of being transformed from simple opposition between people in cases of harassment.

It also happens now that members of the hierarchical line, who normally have to intervene on the basis of their function of authority, transfer their responsibility to the prevention counselor or the trust person. Even though the number of complaints is not high and judicial procedures are almost nonexistent, one cannot regret some form of deterioration of the social climate within companies.

According to a survey conducted within them, 36% of respondents think that the number of abuses and unfounded cases is too high; 54% are of the opinion that the anti-harassment law is not a good approach to the problem; 76% disagree with the principle of reversing the burden of evidence. Protection against dismissal is disapproved by 58%; 42% believe that protection against dismissal promotes abuse.

For the different working groups that have analyzed the law, it is possible to combat this phenomenon by not considering violence and moral or sexual harassment as a separate area for which preventive measures must be taken by the employer, but by taking them back into the "psychosocial burden caused by work".

The psychosocial load caused by work can be expressed in different ways: stress, conflict, excessive behavior. This does not exclude that when excessive behavior is detected in the company, stricter rules must be applied. We endorse this view, hoping that informal mediation within the company will be used first and that the problem of harassment will be incorporated into a comprehensive welfare policy within the company.

In this logic, we look forward to the fact that one of the highlights of the project in discussion is the idea of integrating harassment into the overall workplace well-being problem. We have the same satisfaction for what is a second convergence with our bill, namely the rebuilding of the balance between the preventive and repressive components, on the one hand, and the establishment of a hierarchy at the expense of the judicial path within the repressive component, on the other. This is how the bill, if there is excessive behavior, proposes to support the internal resolution pathway at the expense of the judicial pathway. The injured worker, if he can still appeal to the court, must first exhaust the internal procedure, the judicial cause being, in anticipation, suspended. This is good intelligence and receives broadly our support.

We believe that the same pragmatic approach should have led to a mitigation of the exorbitant mechanism of evidence. This misconception avatar of the respective weights of the different interlocutors of a work relationship denotes in a text whose general philosophy today finds relevance and measure.

The same observation probably applies to some excess of protection against dismissal. At this level, I must nevertheless note on the margins a third convergence with my initiative with regard to the question of the reintroduction of the unjustly dismissed worker. From now on, it will no longer be imposed on the latter to request his reintegration into the company: whether or not he makes the request, the way of compensation will remain possible.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, the MR group will vote on this project, whose philosophy allows to frame the legislation for its fundamental value added. In principle, the accents of a false conception of labour relations are rubbed. We simply regret that this logic has not infused all the provisions of the law.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. De Block thanked Ms. Van Lombeek for her comprehensive report. I, in my turn, cannot do that, because the position of the Flemish Interest was not even mentioned. I would therefore like to say to Ms. Van Lombeek that some objectivity is expected from a reporter. There is no place for political games.

Mrs Van Lombeek, if this is not possible for you in the future, I would like to ask you not to want to be designated as a reporter in the future.

Mr. Speaker, the Flemish Belang is pleased that today a number of more than necessary adjustments will be made to the anti-pest law, although everyone will have to admit that they have been waiting for a long time, in particular, of course, because no less than four ministers and state secretaries, during the short period that the law exists, were confronted with the file.

However, things are as they are.

The Flemish Belang notes that the legislative amendment contains a number of very positive points, in part due to the evaluation report.

In the introduction of the law, we have always warned that it was not the right choice to depart from the integral approach of the welfare law. In fact, the attention to the psychosocial aspects at work was already expressly recorded in Article 4 of the Welfare Act, which listed the areas covered by the measures to promote well-being at work.

Our proposal to include harassment at work was not considered at the time. We are therefore pleased that the legislative amendment has yet to follow our justified criticism and that the domain of violence, harassment and unwanted sexual behavior is no longer considered as a separate domain, but is integrated.

The bill focuses more on prevention than on repression.

Positive is also that more emphasis is placed on neutrality in the first phase. This approach can lead to a more pragmatic approach to the problems and could also lead to more results.

We are also pleased that further emphasis is placed on the appointment and on the role of the internal trust person. A complaint will only be accepted in the future, after a number of conditions have been met. The better description of a reasonably disguised complaint is therefore a very good thing. This puts more emphasis on the shared burden of proof, which is very different from the reverse burden of proof, as set out in the original law.

It is also positive that the abuses of the existing law are countered, including by allowing the employer to dismiss the employee if it is clear that his dismissal has nothing to do with the complaint.

The explicit and exclusive priority of the internal procedures at the level of the enterprise is also important, thus limiting the flight to courts and inspection services and counteracting abuses.

Thus, in their globality, in terms of content, they are two good bills. There may still be criticism on some details, such as on the optional nature of the appointment of a trust person, but that is not of nature to withdraw our approval. A further assessment, Mr. Minister, will be necessary anyway.

Before I close the general discussion, I give you the word.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank Mrs. Van Lombeek for her comprehensive and relevant report.

For the sake of the Flemish Interest, I would like to say that the report is the written report and that you are expressly mentioned there. It might be good to remind you that despite all the good criticism you’ve given out, you’re still the only one who has intended not to approve it.

As most speakers have repeated, these adjustments are indeed the result of a thorough evaluation of a still relatively young law of 11 June 2002. We held a very extensive discussion on this in the committee. Despite the fact that, according to some, there could still be improvements and there could not be a full agreement on everything, the conclusion of most was nevertheless that we could reach a large consensus over majority and opposition, precisely because these two bills made significant improvements to the law of 2002.

As regards the burden of evidence, I would like to reiterate that both the practice and the evaluation have shown that there are actually no real problems. Nevertheless, with both bills, we have made the shared burden of evidence even more explicit.

by Mr. Three amendments were submitted in the plenary session. If I understand correctly, they are the same ones that were submitted to the committee. I can therefore refer to my reply in the committee and ask, therefore, that you reject the three amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to decide to thank the committee members for the extensive discussion in the committee and also here in the plenary session. I would like to thank them in particular for the confidence they have sought to give to the legislative changes.