Achieving work environments that make work sustainable over a lifetime is a key facet of the promotion of longer working lives. This study - based on the fifth European Working Conditions Survey - considers the dimensions of work that have proved essential to the understanding of work sustainability
Psychosocial risks for workers have become a major issue in Belgium. A high priority for public authorities last year was to develop and improve policies to tackle work-related stress and particularly worker burnout. Many studies into such problems have also been conducted. This article gives an
Proposed reforms to Belgium's pension system will – along with other changes – extend the retirement age to 67 by 2030. The proposed reforms have attracted strong criticism from the country's trade unions, but support from employer associations.
The fourth quarter of 2014 was particularly turbulent for industrial relations in Belgium following measures brought in by the new federal government which the unions considered unacceptable. Power struggles developed between unions and government, and between unions and employers, over strikes and
New laws in Belgium to combat psychosocial risks in the workplace became effective on 1 September 2014. These laws update previous legislation enacted in 1996 and 2007, introducing a wider definition of ‘psychosocial risks’ that includes violence and harassment at work. It also deals with the
Belgium’s service voucher scheme, introduced in 2001, has many different objectives. It is designed to help reduce undeclared work, create new jobs and give vulnerable workers access to employment. The scheme is defined in Article 2 of the law of 20 July 2001 in favour of ‘proximity services and
Various types of temporary work in Belgium have different contractual agreements. These include paid training schemes, student jobs, occasional work, service vouchers, apprenticeships, fixed-term contracts and temporary agency work [1]. Most of these work contracts are partly or fully covered by
The term ‘blue-collar worker’ was introduced at the very beginning of the 20th century to describe manual workers. Two decades later, the term ‘white-collar worker’ appeared, describing employees who were engaged in work requiring predominantly mental, rather than physical, effort. During the last
Management at Belgian steel giant ArcelorMittal [1] have been wrestling with the problems of a global decline in demand for a number of years. [1] http://www.arcelormittal.com/corp/
Belgium’s Union of Walloon Enterprises (UWE [1]), one of the country’s leading employer organisations, has installed a new Chair. He is Jean-François Heris, President of AGC Glass Europe [2]. At his investiture at the UWE annual meeting on 2 October 2012, he set out ambitious plans that he hopes
More than 1,200 bankruptcy proceedings were begun in Belgium in October 2012 according to consultancy firm Graydon [1], a leader in commercial and marketing information and credit and debt management. This was an increase of 7.18% compared with October 2011. [1] http://www.graydon.be