On 30 November 2006, the Belgian federal parliament voted in favour of a major revision of the legislation on protection from violence, moral harassment (bullying) and sexual harassment at the workplace. The amended legislation puts greater focus on prevention measures, strengthens the role of in-house mediators, the person of trust, and clarifies the clause regarding employment protection.
In the autumn of 2006, Belgium revised its law on the protection from violence, moral harassment (bullying) and sexual harassment at the workplace (42Kb PDF), which has been in practice since 2002 (BE0205301N). The revision is based on an evaluation (in French) that has been conducted by the federal Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue (FOD Werkgelegenheid, Arbeid en Sociaal Overleg/SPF Emploi, Travail et Concertation sociale), the High Council for Prevention and Safety at Work (Hoge Raad voor Preventie en Bescherming op het Werk/Conseil supérieur pour la Prévention et la Protection au travail) and the National Labour Council (Conseil National du Travail/Nationale Arbeidsraad, CNT/NAR). This article highlights the three most important amendments to the legislation while the parliamentary document (in Flemish and French) provides a detailed outline of all the revisions.
Increased emphasis on prevention
Evaluation has shown that company policies focus primarily on the handling of complaints in relation to violence and harassment while basic prevention strategies are underdeveloped. So far, the law has been perceived by many as too repressive. As a result, the 2006 revision puts greater emphasis on the prevention of violence as well as moral and sexual harassment at work.
Under the general legislation of well-being at work, the 2002 law obliges companies to:
- set up an internal procedure to handle harassment complaints by employees;
- establish a plan for preventing the occurrence of violence and harassment at work;
- appoint a prevention advisor.
The prevention advisor may be part of an internal department or employed by an external service for health and safety in the workplace. External services, typically run by not-for-profit organisations, have to be approved by ministerial order.
In the 2006 legislation, the role of prevention advisor (preventie adviseur/conseiller en prévention) has a new scope. As before, the prevention advisor must be involved in risk analysis and developing collective prevention measures. However, the advisor must now also be skilled in the psychosocial aspects of work, such as issues relating to employees’ perception of stress, job satisfaction and the effect of working time. The idea is to pro-actively manage psychosocial workloads in order to prevent conflict and bullying at work. The aims are to lower recourse to internal conflict resolution procedures and to avoid initiating formal complaint proceedings.
While larger companies can employ a specialised in-house advisor, companies with less than 50 employees must use an external service. Previously, the Committee for Prevention and Safety at Work (Conseil supérieur pour la prevention et la protection au travail) vetted advisor nominations. Now, the appointee must receive unanimous support from all committee members who are worker representatives because the prevention advisor must be seen by all in the company to be trustworthy.
Moreover, employers are now obliged to draft an annual action programme, outlining the company’s measures to ensure employees’ well-being at work, in addition to a general analysis of psychosocial risks at the workplace. This analysis should deal with the possible risks of violence and harassment at work, and thus feed into the company’s annual action programme.
According to the general law on prevention and well-being at work, failure to develop a prevention policy or to assign a prevention advisor is punishable by criminal prosecution (imprisonment of up to one year) or administrative penalties (fines of up to €2,500) for the employer.
Improved status for the person of trust
Under the 2002 law, companies are encouraged to appoint an in-house mediator, a person of trust, for cases of violence or bullying at work, The role of the person of trust was mainly to assist complainants: inform them about their rights, help them to define the problem and look for a solution in an informal way.
The 2006 revisions of the law strengthen the legal position of this person of trust. They are given full autonomy and should be allowed the necessary time and resources to fulfil their role. Specific employment protection legislation for persons of trust – a demand from the trade union-side in the evaluation – is still missing. However, the legislator has improved the possibility to adopt such legal protection in the future by simple ministerial decree. Decrees are governmental decisions while legislative changes have to go through parliament.
Clarification of the employment protection clause
A third important revision tackles the possible misuses of the employment protection clause of the law on the protection from violence, moral harassment (bullying) and sexual harassment at the workplace. Since 2002 when the law came into force, an employee was protected against dismissal from the moment the victim made a formal complaint to the specialised prevention advisor or person of trust. This legal provision created potential for abuse, where employees sought protection from imminent dismissal through complaints related to harassment or violence, or inappropriate use, where employees tried to settle differences as a last resort. Although the number of occurrences of these practices is not known, following criticism from the employers’ side, the employment protection clause of the law has been revised. The protection against dismissal only comes into effect when the complaint is motivated and has been judged valid by the prevention advisor or person of trust.
Commentary
According to surveys, statistics show that people are being harassed or bullied at work at a much greater rate than is recorded by the number of official complaints under the 2002 act (BE0611019I). The revised act aims to increase the effectiveness of the statutory regulations to tackle violence and harassment at work (BE0312304F).
Further information
For more information at European level, see the EWCO topic report, Violence, bullying and harassment in the workplace (TN0406TR01).
Guy Van Gyes, Higher Institute for Labour Studies (HIVA), Catholic University of Leuven