Proposition 55K0798

Projet de loi modifiant les lois du 16 mars 1971 sur le travail et du 10 mai 2007 tendant à lutter contre la discrimination entre les femmes et les hommes en vue d'instituer une protection pour les travailleuses et travailleurs qui s'absentent du travail pour un traitement d'infertilité ou pour une procréation médicalement assistée.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Nathalie Muylle
Ecolo Cécile Cornet
LE Catherine Fonck
MR Christophe Bombled
N-VA Björn Anseeuw
PS | SP Jean-Marc Delizée
Vooruit Anja Vanrobaeys

Submission date

Nov. 26, 2019

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

labour law test tube fertilisation artificial reproduction dismissal leave on social grounds

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 21, 2024 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mrs Vanrobaeys and Reuter, rapporteurs, refer to the written report.

Mrs. Speaker, colleagues, I step into an open door when I say that undergoing fertility treatment for a lot of people is very often a trial. Not only physically, but also mentally, it is often very stressful, not least because the outcome of such treatment, of course, always remains highly uncertain, which causes little peace of mind.

In addition, in such treatment, of course, a number of examinations and procedures must also be carried out at fixed times that one cannot choose, which does not always make it easy to organize it in a proper way, given one’s obligations in the context of his or her job. Having a job is important, but it may not be intended that a job is in the way of a child desire. Therefore, it is important that these two things can be reconciled in a good way. With the present bill there is a good, balanced solution – that last word is the most important – to provide at least at that point for some peace of mind.

I will not tell you a secret when I say that what is now on the table is the merit of colleague Fonck. I would like to emphasize this again. It is above all she who has shown the necessary perseverance and the necessary political skill to reach this beautiful outcome. As far as I am concerned, it is a way of doing politics that will very soon be missed in this House. I would like to thank you and especially colleague Fonck for her wonderful work.

My words will, of course, begin with thanks, not only to the author of this bill, but also to all the colleagues in whom we have found a volunteerism to work and to do politics otherwise. I welcome your patience, I also welcome the will of each of the partners of this majority as well as the opposition parties to have wanted to find consensus. It took time and we reached a consensus. After working on this, I wanted to begin by thanking, in particular, Ms Fonck and Mr Delizée, whom we have welcomed since this plenary session.

First of all, I would like to think of the families that are affected by this bill. I think of those families who have difficulties in having a child or those parents who carry out medical assisted reproduction. These families have asked us. Many of us have been arrested by those and those who undergo medical procedures in order to have children. I was very strongly interpelled by the stress generated by everything around this medically assisted fertilization. There is all that physical stress, because it is sometimes difficult, painful – bites, stress, fatigue, all this is physically very difficult – but what was very difficult for these women in particular was the stress at work. This was due to being late at work. It is known that these are treatments that have as a result that, for a few days in a row, the woman will have to organize her working time, often arrive late to be able to follow her treatment. And this stress adds to the physical stress and the stress of being one day a good parent, a good dad, a good mother. This is the stress we want to improve with this bill.

This stress at work was evident in the planning of the work, but also in relation to risks of dismissal. I myself received a lot of testimonials from women who said, “In fact, my CDD has not been renewed since I’m doing a PMA.” “In fact, I was fired and I couldn’t prove it was related to my PMA, so I don’t have any weapons. And yet, I know that it is closely related to this life choice that I make to become a parent now."And at the moment that these parents, at the moment that these mothers need support, they need for sure their work, their income. This was an additional stress in their PMA journey.

I’ll even tell you: the day we talked about this bill in committee, I already received messages asking me, “Is it voted? Is this already an application?"&.8239;We feel that there is a real demand. I can assure you that these testimony really touched me deeply. I am very pleased that we can provide a solution, at least to some of these situations.

We provide a solution by protecting against dismissal, with two months of protection against dismissal from the moment the employer is notified. It is huge. Of course, when you are the victim of a dismissal that you consider abusive, you can always go to the court and enforce anti-discrimination laws. This is done afterwards. The evil is done. While here, there is real protection, which is before dismissal and that really protects women more.

Of course, as an environmentalist, I would have wanted to go a step further. I would have wanted people who are on treatment to be able to follow it with that available time to go there, that available time that is released from their working time. We could not go until then. This does not prevent us from going back to it at some point.

In any case, this protection against dismissal, I am pleased, will improve the quality of life of workers and workers who want to become parents and who go through medical assisted procreation. I thank you, dear colleagues. I am very excited and very happy that we have a vote today on this text. I thank you.

I cannot begin my speech without having a thought for my colleague Jean-Marc Delizée, who has invested a lot in this text. I hope to represent him as best as possible.

Dear colleagues, Mr. Minister, a fighter’s journey is what couples who want to have a child, but have problems with infertility. This law proposal will also have experienced a sort of fighting path. Indeed, on March 1st, it will be thirteen years since she came up with her twin, a bill proposed by the PS group, almost in every point similar. Inspired by hearings and long debates around the protection of women using in vitro fertilization, both aimed to ensure the right to be absent and protection against dismissal for workers undergoing treatment for infertility.

They have gone a long way to this day, they have matured, lost a few feathers, but today we are finally ready to adopt a new protection for those women and men who are increasingly facing obstacles to have a child. In Belgium, one in six couples is affected by infertility. By 2020, more than 33,000 in vitro fertilization cycles were undertaken, resulting in 5,194 births, or 4.6% of the total births. The number of people affected.

This is often seen as a test. As the head of the ASBL Desire d’Enfant pointed out during the hearings, an unsatisfied child desire affects all aspects of your life, your physical well-being, your relationships with others, your financial situation, your sexual life, your self-image and your work.

I want to highlight here the anguish that these treatments can cause. Their unpredictable schedule is a real source of stress for the worker or worker who must report to an employer. This stress comes in addition to the already important one caused by medically assisted reproduction. The fear of late arrival, the fatigue that makes fear of being less performing, missing some important moments for the company because you do not have the choice of the date and time of the treatment, these are feelings that are difficult to manage. Added to this is the fear of losing your job.

Today it is essential to make progress for all these working women and all those workers who are increasingly numerous. It is true that in this long maturing, the proposal that is presented to you today is unfortunately not as complete as we would have desired. The right to be absent did not meet a consensus. This remains another step to be taken, but we have nevertheless made a good step forward: the specific protection against dismissal included in the Labour Act of 1971 following the Chapter on the Protection of Maternity.

This protection against dismissal begins as soon as the worker or worker has submitted a medical certificate attesting the beginning of a treatment cycle. It ends two months later. Whenever the worker or worker starts a new processing cycle, he or she can benefit from this protection. Contrary to the protection already offered by the Gender Act against all forms of discrimination, the burden of proof in the context of protection against dismissal lies from the start on the employer. This may sound like a detail, but for the working woman, it’s a huge difference. She will not have to make a heavy and costly legal action after she has been dismissed to obtain damages. Protection comes into effect from the dismissal by imposing on the employer to pay a fixed allowance of six months of gross salary. This is a more dissuasive punishment than the risk of a judicial procedure.

Dear colleagues, this is a major step today for all those women and all those men who make the choice to become parents despite obstacles, a step towards more serenity, more security and more freedom.

I am ⁇ pleased to see this proposal come into effect today after eighteen months of discussion in the Social Affairs Committee. Many opinions were requested and hearings were even held in June last year. These opinions, as well as the hearings, helped feed the debates and our reflection over time. I take the opportunity to thank all the speakers who participated in these hearings. They really enlightened us on the subject. Thank you also to the associations for telling us about the often difficult paths of these men and especially these women, who have a desire for children and who cannot realize their dream.

As I said, there was a long exchange. But this is not the first time and it will ⁇ not be the last when it will take time for opinions to clarify and join. In the end, it is the result that matters. I would like to thank Ms. Fonck for allowing, through this proposal, to bring the debate on the table. The text presented today by the Social Affairs Committee is a first step compared to the original proposal. This is a first step, but a first step in the right direction. This proposition speaks of a very intimate, very sensitive, probably even taboo subject. To the desire for children are added psychological pressure, frustrations, sadness in case of failure but also guilt and stress in trying to reconcile medical treatments with work life.

However, I would like to emphasize that in the vast majority of cases, everything goes very well at work. There is understanding from employers and colleagues. The vast majority is comprehensive, allows absences and adapts to a different organization of work. This was said in the hearings, and I am also convinced of it. But for those and those who find it difficult to live the situation, we bring here a concrete answer, that of being able to have a quiet mind, free from the fear of losing his job. Finally, this additional protection against dismissal reduces stress, fatigue and overwork, thereby improving the benevolent conditions for those people in treatment, from the first day to a month after the end of treatment.

In conclusion, we can affirm that one cannot oppose the will of the parent to the will of the parent to maintain his employment and to have a life. Et c'est la raison pour laquelle mon groupe et moi-même soutiendrons pleinement cette proposition qui vous est soumise. You remercie for your attention.

Mrs. Speaker, colleagues, I want to thank Mrs. Fonck and Mr. Delizée for waging this struggle for a very long time. Ms. Leoni has just said it, if you count everything, it is about 13 years of proposals, debates and discussions. I am pleased that today we can finally take a step forward and put this bill to vote. The last amendment was very understandable and we all supported it. Today we are finally there.

We all know that fertility treatment is extremely difficult both physically and emotionally. There is an enormous amount of stress, there are physical consequences, but there is also sadness when treatment fails. There is also the fear of being fired. Do you dare to speak to your employer? A lot of emotions come with it, and then you have to work too. The combination of work and family is very difficult.

We have said that we all know someone in our surroundings who has gone through it and we all know how hard it is. The experts said during the hearing that there is already a dismissal protection, but we want to avoid people being dismissed and we only take recovery measures afterwards. With this bill, we make that protection effective earlier and we make it much better for those undergoing fertility treatment.

As already mentioned, many employers understand this and when someone needs to undergo medical treatment, for example, they say they can come a little later and get the job at another time. However, this is not the case everywhere. All workers undergoing fertility treatment must have that protection, the certainty that they cannot be fired for that.

There should also be a right of absence. I speak explicitly about a right to absence, because for me it really differs from a leave. Pregnant workers may be absent from work when they must undergo certain medical examinations that cannot be outside of working hours. The same applies to fertility treatments. They can also not simply stay outside of working hours. People do not choose the time themselves.

The hospital or center where you are being treated will determine the time of the appointment. For us, this could have been arranged immediately. That does not mean that we see this as a step forward in protecting women and also men who are undergoing this. They are also becoming more and more.

I would like to thank the many colleagues for their cooperation, which allows us to pass this bill today and we can take that step forward for those people.

Unfortunately, Mrs. President, Mrs. Muylle may not be present. On her behalf, I would like to thank the colleagues and Ms Fonck for the initiative, for the fact that we have all been able to work together on this.

I think this is an important step forward for anyone undergoing fertility treatment. These are usually women, but sometimes also men. It is good that we have arranged this dismissal protection. This is an important first step.

We also know that many employers are already open and positive about this today. Fortunately, many employers already take into account this difficult period that people sometimes go through. Sometimes they have no problem giving unpaid leave or paying for the hours of treatment. However, it is still better that it is written in the law that this cannot be a reason for dismissal. This is an important step forward. I would like to say this on behalf of our group and on behalf of Mrs. Muylle.

It has been thirteen years since I submitted this bill for the first time. In this regard, I would like to take a glance at Jean-Marc Delizée who, if he had been present today, would have had the heart to defend this text.

The challenge is truly to protect and accompany couples who find it difficult to conceive a child. If Belgium is one of the pioneers in the field of reproductive rights, to which it now guarantees good accessibility, it must be noted that, despite the accompaniment offered in the different Belgian clinics as part of the treatment of infertility and medically assisted reproduction (PMA), the journey remains long and difficult, both physically and emotionally. The PMA is somehow the Russian mountains every month. This is the message that we often hear from those and those who are faced with this fighting path.

Alongside the physiological and psychological difficulties, there is also the difficulty of combining treatment and work life: you have to be available regularly and face many unexpected and last-minute changes sometimes complicated when it comes to jongling with your work. In addition, some have more opportunities than others to combine treatment with their professional activity.

Today, it is no longer acceptable – not even ethical – to be faced with dismissal for repeated absences due to medical assisted reproduction. No, this is not acceptable, because these women are actually only protected between medical certificates, which are short-lived, so that this device will prevent non-protection during the period corresponding to these different treatments or examinations.

Yes, there are still grey areas. There are still some injustice. However, we should welcome the fact that this is going well with many employers while regretting that this is not the case for everyone.

We also ensured, at the very end of our work, that the text is clarified so that the bill can cover all those and all those who are treated, whether it is heterosexual couples, homosexual couples or single couples. This was ⁇ important to me. I would like to thank you, dear colleagues, for accepting this new text amendment that I proposed to you. Here is for the bottom.

I would like, if you allow me, to use this work as an example, even though it took a lot of patience, to address a point ⁇ more political. Dear colleagues, in order to win in advances, both at the level of the daily lives of citizens and of the general interest, the politicians would do well to collaborate much more rather than to look at each of their umbilical or their party. In this regard, I would like to especially welcome the way to do in this case, the willingness that has emerged to work beyond the majority-opposition debate as well as the strong willingness to develop synergies through a very broad majority of political parties present in this Assembly. I can’t quote each individual here for the work done on this text but I thank you each and each. You will recognize yourself. We could, or rather we should – I want to say – collaborate much more and much more often. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the majority or in the opposition. What interests them is that we can move the lines and move the schmilblick forward.

I do not doubt that each of you will be able to relay this collective work that we have done together. We all know of women, men or couples who are concerned, whether among our relatives or among our colleagues at work, in a previous job, or more broadly, among citizens who have questioned us and who will continue to do so.

We have taken a first step on protection. It remains for us to take the step that was present in the initial bill proposal: the fact of accompanying, to allow more flexibility in taking into account the absences of the persons concerned.

I would like to conclude and maybe open the debate, a call. We can dream for the next few weeks. You never know. for the months and years to come. We will then be able to take an additional step for those couples who need support amidst all the difficulties they are experiencing to conceive a child and a family. Thank you, dear colleagues. I hope to vote unanimously tonight.