Proposition 52K2366

Projet de loi portant exécution temporaire de l'organisation des relations entre les autorités publiques et les syndicats du personnel militaire.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Ingrid Claes
LE Brigitte Wiaux
MR François Bellot
Open Vld Hilde Vautmans
PS | SP André Flahaut

Submission date

Jan. 14, 2010

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

armed forces military personnel trade union trade union rights

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Party dissidents ¶

• André Flahaut (PS | SP) voted to reject.
• Denis Ducarme (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 18, 2010 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I will be brief because we have not had much discussion on this project.

Ms. Claes presented the context of the submission of this bill. I think it is necessary to recall the main lines.

It should be noted that the trade union status of military personnel is defined by a law of 1978 that organizes the relations between public authorities and the trade unions of military personnel. This trade union law provides that the content of the enforcement order must be the subject of negotiations between public authorities and representative trade unions. It is the royal decree that determines these representative trade unions.

However, several provisions of the 2006 Royal Decree were annulled by the State Council in March 2009 because the enforcement decree had been negotiated in an unlawful manner. The cancellation therefore leads to the disappearance of the legal basis determining the negotiating partners of public authorities. The only way to address this problem was to create implementation arrangements that should not be negotiated. This could be achieved by means of this bill which takes the content of the Royal Decree of December 2006, cancelled.

After the entry into force of this Act, a new executive order and a new trade union statute will be negotiated on a legal basis. We have therefore clearly understood that the objective of the draft law examined in a committee is to ensure legal certainty for both the trade union organization and for the public authorities.

Obviously, there were no observations. All articles were adopted unanimously, as well as the entire bill.

Here is my report.

I now allow myself to speak on behalf of Ecolo-Groen!

Like the majority, our group supported this bill because it resulted from an exceptional situation. Trade unions were also in favor of a quick solution.

I would like to remind you that we will be careful that this remains an exception and is not the rule. I will remind the Minister how important social consultation is, that it represents a guarantee of success for all reforms in progress and in the future, within the Defence as well as elsewhere.

Mr Boulet, thank you for your report.

I would like to take a moment to emphasize the importance of this bill. At the moment, the military trade union statute is standing. The proposal creates legal certainty, both for the representative trade unions and for the government.

Once the bill comes into force, a new trade union statute can be negotiated on a legal basis.

I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Committee for the Defence of the Lands for the constructive cooperation across all party boundaries.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, I thank Mrs. Boulet for her brief report. I think the discussion was also very short, a few minutes, but that had, of course, also to do with the extensive discussion we had about it before.

The present bill was submitted by the majority parties and it seeks to provide a solution to the impasse in which the current military syndical status currently lies.

What is the problem? Eleven months ago, on 9 March 2009, the Council of State annulled the KB of 3 December 2006 implementing the law of 11 July 1978 regulating the relations between government and trade unions. The reason for this was that the KB had not been established through regular negotiations. As a result, there is currently no committee that can legally negotiate.

For Open Vld, a good trade union work is very important, especially in Landsverding.During the commission for Landsverding yesterday, Mr. Minister, I once again hammered on this.

We are facing a major challenge, the transformation plan for our military force. Everyone knows that there is going to be a major reform. A lot of barracks are closed. Many soldiers are faced with a mandatory mutation. We at the Open Fld understand that a reform is needed and that a weakened army also involves the necessary infrastructure decisions, which are absolutely necessary in these budgetary times.

On the other hand, we have always asked for proper and necessary social support measures. If you want to highlight those accompanying measures, of course, you can’t ignore the relationship with the trade unions. Now we have a little bit of the shoe. You have, as you repeated yesterday, regularly informed the trade unions and negotiated with them and tried to reach an agreement. We only note that only one of the four trade unions has agreed to the accompanying measures of the transformation plan.

Mr. Minister, I did it yesterday in the committee and I will do it here in the plenary session for the last time. I ask you again to try again to reach an agreement with the other trade unions. I understand that you as a government cannot answer all their questions. I said this very clearly yesterday. Budgetary constraints must be taken into account. Not all questions about financial measures are possible. I think there are a number of points that can ⁇ be addressed.

I ask you here, very officially for this house, if you want to make a last attempt. Join the trade unions again. Try with them, barracks by barracks, to find out what needs to be done for guidance. The interrogation is currently completed. The choices of the soldiers were given. I understand that we will not be able to give everyone the first choice. All the people of Helchteren, for example, 250, who must go to Brasschaat, ask for a number after all to stay in Limburg. It will be very difficult, we understand that. But please, sit together for the last time and try to make the maximum effort to make an agreement with them. That is a legitimate question in the period in which the military force is currently located.

The current bill, which we hope to approve soon, offers a solution to return to good relations with the trade unions. The bill provides legal certainty for the organization of a count based on the provisions of the law to identify a trade union organization, as well as to realize a new KB implementing the trade union law.

With the bill, the representative trade union organisations will be able to have either an additional, permanent trade union representative or more days of trade union leave for the local trade union representative. We have agreed to this proposal and we have also previously talked a lot with the trade unions. In writing the bill, we have actually asked for a number of points, namely, the permission for suspending trade union messages at military quarters will be granted centrally, at staff level. What was very important to us...

( ... )

Mr. Dedecker, if I let you visit a damaged barracks, you would understand why we asked for this.

( ... )

Maybe they would have kept you better there in that barracks, colleague Dedecker.

I advocate for a proper relationship between government and trade unions. The government must perform its task. We have to make decisions and the trade unions have to do their job. The trade unions must defend the interests of the staff. In the future, an agreement must be reached between the two. I think what I’m saying here is nothing new.

( ... )

Thank you, colleague Dedecker. I am proud of that too. With you, that idealism may have disappeared, but I am still proud to be liberal and to fight for my ideals in this House, even though there are few people listening and everyone is sitting a little bit babbling with each other. I think it is important that we discuss this with the Minister.

Mr. Minister, we will soon approve the bill with great pleasure because I think it is necessary. I think you can continue to work. We have agreed that you will continue to work. You then have a legal basis and then you can continue to work on recognizing the trade unions so that you can negotiate with them.

Colleagues, Open Vld will approve this bill later. Mr. Minister, I ask you once again to try to get together with the trade unions. Try to reach a little more consensus on the social guidance measures that should accompany the transformation plan.

First of all, I would like to say to Mr. I am proud to be a socialist.

In its statement, this government decided to continue the transformation. In order to continue this necessary transformation, I am convinced that it is absolutely necessary to have a permanent and as constructive social dialogue as possible.

It is important to constantly dialogue with trade unions, which is quite possible. Unfortunately, in recent weeks and in recent months, it has been observed that acts have been made quite misguided, without giving the forms of social dialogue the importance they deserve. There was a lack of transparency, frankness and willingness to succeed.

It was probably this relationship difficulty that led to the rejection of the royal decree accompanying the transformation by three organisations out of four. The three political trade union organizations refused and the corporate organization signed its agreement.

This is an important fact! In fact, Mr. Minister, you need trade union cooperation to carry out your reform. Without this, the following months will still be packed with a series of incidents that will delay, in one way or another, the transformation that you have decided to continue.

I therefore believe, like Ms. Vautmans and like others, that it is indispensable that, before this Chamber, you say you are ready to make a last effort, by meeting once again with the trade union organizations and examining with them whether it is not possible to improve one or another point of this royal decree which has been submitted to formal consultation. Sure, if only one trade union signs its agreement, you can move forward, but that would be on a very bad basis. Mr. Minister, I invite you to provide this last effort because it will have a positive effect on the progress and pace of your reform in the days, weeks and months to come.

The text submitted is indeed important and will probably be adopted by a very broad majority as it restores the legality in the social consultation within the Department of Defense. To advance in social legality without the adoption of this text would be to give the worst example. Of course, the agreement of one of the unions is enough for you, but it is not about minimizing the interventions of the different interlocutors.

I would like you to inform us of your decision to make an additional effort to bring this consultation to an end in the best possible conditions.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, the clarifications on the bill have been given by Mrs. Boulet, whom I thank.

This proposal regarding the military trade union status is important. The moment we are going through today in the Department of Defence is also. The reform is extensive. It already involves and will involve a number of efforts at the level of mentalities, of how the army will function, and in the head of the military through mutations, transhumances.

We have already been able to make a number of changes to this reform plan. This allowed us to fully agree with the majority. We noticed that you were able to take open positions for consultation as part of these changes.

This law will give you the opportunity to satisfy yourself, as part of this plan of reform, with the opinion of a single trade union.

I believe that at some point politics must be able to move forward. I am, however, surprised: while the law was not yet passed, I read a mail last week telling you that, anyway, the plan would pass in its entirety and that you only needed the agreement of a single trade union. I don’t know if it was the press who said this or if you really said it. What is unfortunate about this is that before the law is passed – I felt it when I read these lines – the spirit of concertation with the trade unions is broken.

I fully associate myself with the remarks made by Ms. Hilde Vautmans and Minister Flahaut, namely that we cannot work in positive conditions to give birth to this reform of the army if it is not done in a spirit of concertation that brings together all efforts to go in the same direction and in the direction of reform.

You have heard Mrs. Hilde Vautmans of the Open Vld, the Minister Flahaut of the PS and you hear the MR also on this tribune. We ask you to reopen the discussion with the trade unions so that you are not satisfied with a single opinion and a single agreement, but to act collectively. So I propose that you invite the trade unions to march in your cabinet for the last time and ⁇ give us the opportunity to see a spirit of concord organized around the reform of the army. I think that is essential. The three traditional unions are the ones that weigh the most in terms of military representation and moving forward without giving a last chance to the concorde would be quite a shame!

Since this bill has not yet been voted, I hope to hear you on this subject and see you send the opening signal to try, one last time, a meeting, in order to develop the consultation around this reform with the trade unions.

The ball is in your field, Mr. Minister! I do not guarantee that I will support this proposal. It depends on you and your spirit of concertation in this matter.

Mr. Speaker, the proposal we are discussing today was submitted by the five majority parties. The colleagues Claes, Bellot, Flahaut, Vautmans and Wiaux have submitted, signed and defended this bill in the committee.

As everyone has said in their presentations, this proposal restores the syndical status of military personnel. This was important because we know what history preceded it. At the request of a recognized but non-representative trade union, the State Council on 9 March 2009 annulled the provisions of the 2006 trade union decree. I will not remain at this point for so long, but the State Council has ruled that this decision was negotiated according to modalities and procedures that were unlawful. The trade union law stipulates that negotiations must take place in the negotiation committee composed of a delegation of the representative trade unions and a delegation of the government. The other rules, such as who the representative trade unions are, are determined by the king according to this law. The royal decree can therefore not be taken without being considered illegitimate again.

The only way out of this impasse is to temporarily elevate to the level of the law what, for now, constitutes the execution order. This allows to negotiate the content of the new trade union decree, in accordance with the legal provisions. As such, I would like to thank the signatories of this bill, the majority parties, as well as those who, in the opposition, supported it. Their approach helps to solve a problem that has regularly appeared in defence. In fact, the ruling preceding that of 2006 had also been partially cancelled.

The proposal reads, with a few exceptions, the content of the 2006 decree. The first exception relates to the granting, to each representative trade union, of a sixth permanent delegate in charge of Defense or of ten local delegates who may benefit from twenty-two additional days of trade union leave, which corresponds to what has been agreed with the trade unions. The second exception concerns the transitional measure that allows professional unions that have been recognized as representative to maintain this quality, while waiting for the result of the counting that will be carried out in application of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, voorzitter, waarde collega's, I support this text as it was deposited, since it allows to restore the legality of the trade union status of military personnel, which is also the ambition of the signatories and co-signators.

I will now refer to the interventions of mevrouw Vautmans, Mr. Flahaut and Ducarme.

Ms. Vautmans, in your speech you have referred to a number of points. This is separate from this. The whole context is that of the transformation plan. I will not repeat your reasoning in which I can fully find myself. There are several challenges, such as the budgetary challenge and the reform challenge. Thank you for your support for this reform.

You asked me a question about the consultation.

Our colleagues Flahaut and Ducarme referred to the additional consultation. I would rather speak of permanent consultation because, even today, there were talks about working hours.

This is the best proof that the negotiation continues. There is still an outstretched hand to the trade unions that have not yet signed the agreement. It would also be good that the agreement, which has already been signed by one trade union organization – whatever the typology is given to it – be carried, if possible, by several organizations.

It is also my state of mind to act like this. It is the hand stretched towards organisations that, so far, have not been able or, for quite legitimate reasons, have not yet had the opportunity or intention to co-sign the agreement entered.

It is the tense hand. I leave the door open.

I think that this meets the need for further consultation, without re-starting everything.

But this consultation is permanent, since we were, even today, in full meeting.

This was my response to my colleagues who spoke.

Does anyone ask for the word?

I like things clear and precise. The stretched hand is very good. But with regard to the decree, which was discussed and which was the subject of a consultation with the agreement of only one organization out of the four, I would like to know whether it will be, at the initiative of the minister during a meeting either in the technique of confession or in the technique of plenary, put on the table to examine the points that will eventually be amended.

The question is simple. The answer may also be. It is yes or not.

Mr. Flahaut, my answer is very clear and very simple. The door is open. The consultation is permanent. The working time issue, which is an integral part of the entire agreement, is now being renegotiated.

I will insist on the fact that the proposal, which will be voted here, is nevertheless not directly related to the transformation plan. Of course, there are "communicating vessels" between this project and the transformation plan. I leave the door open. It is the stretched hand. This is also a positive approach from both parties involved.

As Minister of Public Service, then as Minister of Defence, I practiced the consultation. My question is simple. You have negotiated with the trade union organizations a draft text, on which a trade union has given its agreement. The other three said no. Will you reorganize a final meeting with these organizations, depending on the techniques you find useful, to turn rejection into approval or to stay with a yes and three no? It is yes or it is not.

I record with satisfaction that you will continue to stretch out the hand, it may change us a little. With regard to the text in question, I ask you whether it is yes or not. If yes, I support this text; if no, I will vote against.

What you vote for is your responsibility. Given the legal provisions, since a trade union has signed, the plan will be implemented. This is clear. I repeat once again that I am willing to continue the talks, as evidenced by my metaphors of the stretched hand and the open door. Since love must come from both sides, I am at your disposal.

Mr. Duchamp, I will give you the word. The question was clear and the answer was given.

I ask you to interpret the answer, because I did not understand it.

It is necessary to conclude the debate at some point.

Mr. Speaker, I would really like to subscribe to your neutral observation, which indicated that Mr. Speaker’s question. Flahaut was clear and that the answer had been given.

I did not understand, Mr. Minister, through the various metaphors that have probably polluted this debate, if in fact you leave the possibility to the other three unions to rediscover the text related to the Defense transformation plan and for which you today have the agreement of only one union. This does not mean that the agreement you received from this union is not enough for you. This law has not yet been voted.

Compared to this text as signed by this trade union, are you ready to reopen the discussion to the other three trade unions and demonstrate more concertation? This is the same question that Mr. Flahaut has set up. Answer yes or no and my attitude will, consequently, be similar to that of Mr. Flahaut just described for what concerns him.

I will follow your proposal. My answer has been given and ⁇ today’s consultation will change the opinions of trade union organizations that, so far, have not co-signed the text.

I think the trade unions will read the report of this meeting.