Social elections 2020: Homeworkers can vote from their ‘home office’
More and more employees structurally work from home (with fixed homeworking days). Assuming the social elections date falls on an employee’s regular homeworking day, such an employee no longer needs to go to the company premises to vote. Due to some changes in the 2020 Social Elections Act of 4 April 2019, it is now possible to vote electronically from home.
E-voting in the past
The option for employees to vote electronically is not new and was implemented for the first time during the 2012 social elections. Since then, the employer and the competent employee representative body/bodies could unanimously decide on the principle of voting electronically by means of an IT-system that meets certain legal requirements. Until recently, any employee who wanted to vote electronically could only do so in a voting office located at the company’s premises.
What’s new?
The 2020 Social Elections Act of 4 April 2019 has introduced two significant changes in the applicable legal framework.
First, a unanimous decision is no longer required to agree on the principle of e-voting. As of now, the regular decision-taking modalities as set out in the internal rules of the works council or health and safety committee apply, implying that such a decision may be taken by a simple majority of votes.
More importantly, the legislator has provided that a remote e-vote is now possible. The works council, the health and safety committee, or in their absence, the employer in agreement with the trade union delegation, may decide that employees use an e-vote from their usual work place, provided that the e-voting system is linked to the secured company network and that certain technical requirements are met.
The agreement includes, amongst other things, a definition of the usual work place. The freedom for the competent employee representative body/bodies allows a tailor-made definition, aligned with company specific employment situations. The parties can therefore decide that the usual work place also covers an employee’s home office, in which an employee uses the company laptop and is connected with the company’s IT-system. It is also recommended to agree on what cannot be considered as a usual work place, e.g. the employee’s company car used to travel from client to client, even if this is an employee’s usual place of work.
Conclusion and practical recommendation
We expect that more and more employee representative bodies will use the increased flexibility offered by the legislator to implement an e-voting system in which employees can vote electronically from their home office. This may encourage employees to participate in the 2020 social elections and will most likely result in an increased number of voting employees.
When implementing a remote e-voting system, we advise employers to anticipate the possible technical issues requiring the support of flying IT-technicians, who, if need be, can travel from one home office to another to solve possible IT-issues.
Recommended articles
The reformed recognition procedure for dock workers… the end of a legal battle?
A new Royal Decree of 21 December 2022 substantially changes the recognition procedure for dock workers. This Royal Decree was issued in the aftermath of a long-standing legal battle initiated by two major players in the sector that challenged the very specific Belgian legislation on dock workers. Although the principle that dock work can only be carried out by recognised dock workers fully remains in place, the application process to become a recognised dock worker should now become (more) objective, non-discriminatory and transparent.
Read on
Abolition of the reorientation indemnity’s (partial) reimbursement: a (significant) additional cost for employers conducting a collective lay-off
Employees terminated in the frame of a collective lay-off may participate in a redeployment cell, which helps them to find new employment. Any participating employee is entitled to a monthly reorientation indemnity equal to his/her salary inclusive benefits during a period of 3 or 6 months. The employer pays the reorientation indemnity. Until very recently, an employer could obtain a reimbursement from the unemployment office (“RVA”/“Onem”) for the amount of the reorientation indemnity exceeding the statutory indemnity in lieu of notice.
Read on
Draft Belgian Whistleblowing Act now adopted in Parliament!
The draft Belgian Act on whistleblowing for the private sector, which transposes EU Directive 2019/1937 (‘the Whistleblowing Directive’) into national legislation, has finally been adopted in Parliament. The Act still has to be published in the Belgian State Gazette and will enter into force 2 months after its publication.
Read on