Social elections 2020 postponed due to COVID-19 outbreak
25 Mar 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting individuals, families and businesses in an unprecedented way. One of the difficulties that we are now faced with is the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 2020 social elections. Due to the far-reaching containment measures taken by the Belgian government - and taking into account the prognosis on how long these measures will have to remain in place - it became clear that the normal 2020 social elections calendar could not be maintained.
Against this background, the social partners reached an agreement on 18 March 2020 to postpone the social elections. The social elections will therefore no longer take place in May 2020, with a new date yet to be determined. The social elections procedure will be suspended (“frozen”) after date X+35 (situated between 17 and 30 March 2020). On a new date, yet to be determined, the procedure will be rebooted as from date X+36. The further details of the postponement and the official decision by the competent minister will follow as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, the procedural step on date X+35, on which the representative employee organisations must submit their candidate lists, still has to be complied with. The Federal Public Service in charge of Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue advises organisations to submit candidate lists through its web application - so not on paper. The posting of the candidate lists by the employer at the company premises on date X+40 will, however, be postponed.
There are no clear insights yet on how the end of the blackout period for the protection from dismissal will be tackled, but we suspect that the blackout period will most likely end on date X+35.
Once we’ve received more information, we will publish a new post so that you have the latest insights.
For more information on the 2020 social elections, visit our dedicated social elections website or contact one of our experts.
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