Temporary Work and fixed-term contracts
| Autor | Pieter Pecinovsky - Piet Van den Bergh |
| Páginas | 1-9 |
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Temporary work and especially agency work is quite a popular tool for Belgian employers and companies. In 2011 there were 547.259 temporary agency workers, which were placed by 1.356 temporary work agencies. So more than 12% of the active population was a temporary agency worker, which seems to be quite a lot. However less than 100.000 persons worked more than 65 days of the year (which entitle them a right on an end of the year bonus) as a temporary agency worker.
Although it is not allowed to discriminate temporary workers and the law tries to protect them at a decent level, their situation is often not ideal, since most contracts have very short terms of only one week, which are renewed or prolonged after every week, giving the temporary worker very little job stability.
It is possible to subscribe temporary employment contracts in Belgium. However the use of this type of employment is restricted by legislation in order to give the temporary worker an adequate protection and to protect the jobs of permanent workers. On one hand, the lawmakers want to grant the positive flexibility of temporary work to employers, but on the other hand they are afraid to be blamed to allow comfortable permanent jobs being massively replaced by insecure temporary ones.
Temporary work is regulated by the Act of 24 July 1987. In this act, it is provided that temporary work can be carried out either in a direct relationship between employee and employer, or in the context of a triangular relationship involving a temporary work agency, a temporary worker, and a user. In practice, it is only this later form, agency work, that temporary work is used.
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Temporary work can only be performed for well-defined specific reasons or motives, which are laid down by the Act of 24 July 1987, and which have to be present at the level of the user enterprise. These are:
· Replacement of a permanent employee;
· Responding to a temporary increase of the workload;
· Performing of exceptional work;
· Recruitment of the temporary worker.
As a rule, fixed term contracts are used. Replacement contracts for the period during which the replaced person is absent, and contracts for a well-defined work are the other contractual forms under which temporary work can be carried out (cf. article 2 Law of 24 July 1987 on Temporary Work).
The Belgian legislation makes a clear distinction between regular fixed-duration contracts on the one hand, and temporary work, mainly via temporary work agencies, on the other hand. An employer is only allowed to conclude up to 4 fixed-duration contracts with an employee, for a total duration of maximum 2 years, whereby each contract must cover a period of minimum 3 months. With prior consent of the labour inspection, successive fixed-duration contracts of minimum 6 months each can be concluded for up to three years. When a fixed-duration contract is concluded in breach of these rules, the contract is considered to be open ended.
Temporary contracts including temporary agency work contracts on the other hand, can only be concluded to carry out temporary work. Temporary work is defined as the activity of:
· Replacing a permanent employee;
· Responding to a temporary increase of the workload;
· Performing an exceptional work;
· Having a temporary...
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