Fundamental rights of the social partners

Participants considered social dialogue to be well respected in Belgium. Social partners were represented in labour courts and consulted by authorities at federal or regional level on all labour-related legislative initiatives. Social partners were members of the National Labour Council (CNT) and the Central Economic Council (CCE), federal bodies responsible for supporting social dialogue and concluding national collective agreements, while other structures were in place at regional level. The CNT and CCE were also the contact points for international labour institutions and were consulted on the European Semester cycle. Participants highlighted that collective agreements could be extended to the whole private sector, and their coverage was close to 100%. In the context of recent socio-economic crises, social partners had been requested to deliver a high number of opinions within a limited amount of time, so participants were concerned that the increased workload would impact on the quality of their work. In addition, they criticised the government for having a cherry-picking approach, by not implementing all the agreements reached by social partners during consultations, undermining their impact. Participants also felt that their views were not taken into consideration upstream, during the drafting of legal texts. As a consequence, laws did not reflect the reality of the work sectors from their perspective, and corrective work had to be done at a later stage. Participants expressed concern regarding limitations on the right to demonstrate, following two recent cases at the port of Antwerp and the Cheratte bridge. Local union representatives had been sentenced by the court for "obstruction of traffic", picketing and merely being present at demonstrations, on the basis of "passive behaviour". According to their view, the possibility for civil courts to impose unilateral penalty payments for organising pickets, giving demonstrators the right to be heard only after the ruling was issued, was also perceived as a worrying trend. Other participants pointed out the negative impact of strikes on other sectors and rights, such as on small and medium-sized enterprises and mobility. The Belgian authorities underlined that the right to strike was protected by international conventions and national law. According to participants, a court verdict was needed for the dismissal of trade union representatives in the past. However, this trend had changed and businesses, especially multinational companies, were dismissing individuals without following the appropriate procedures, preferring to pay a fine. Privacy and data in the workplace were protected by collective agreements, but participants mentioned a recent judicial case against a bank which had monitored its employees' emails, especially targeting those who were part of trade unions. Career advancements were considered to be more difficult for union members and there was no rule regarding gender equality in union representation. Participants also asked for equal representation of social partners in national human rights institutions such as Unia. From the participants' point of view, there was more consensus among social partners than political forces on the need to integrate people of foreign origin in the labour market, in order to meet employers' workforce needs. They reported that language ability and the recognition of qualifications and skills, rather than country of origin, were the major barriers to the increased participation of these individuals in the labour market and in society. Participants demanded more effort in this area, such as courses, training and simplified procedures. Participants also reported that social partners had recently tried to update the 2005 collective agreement on teleworking, given the increase in digital work brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and were following negotiations at European level. The impact of artificial intelligence and the reintegration of people on long-term sickness in the job market were mentioned as other work priorities.