Transparent and predictable working conditions: minimum rights for the worker

European Directive (EU) 2019/1152 aims to improve working conditions by promoting, among others, more transparent and predictable employment.

It is transposed into Belgian law by the law of 7 October 2022.

This law provides for:

• the obligation, for the employer, to provide the worker with certain information about his/her working conditions;
• a set of minimum rights for the worker; a summary of which is below;
• protection against adverse treatment and dismissal; this will be covered in a following Infoflash.

Parallel employment

Unless there is a legal derogation, the employer may not:

• prohibit a worker from taking up employment with another employer (or other employers) outside his/her work schedule;
• or subject him/her to adverse treatment for this reason.

Mandatory training

The employer must provide the worker with training free of cost:

• which he must organise in application of provisions of law or a collective bargaining agreement;
• and which is necessary to carry out the work for which the worker is employed.

Such training cannot be the subject of a training clause.

The time during which the worker attends this type of training shall be considered working time; training shall be carried out during working hours, unless the employer can demonstrate that organising it is impossible at that time.

Variable part-time work schedule

Worker's refusal of a work assignment

A part-time worker employed under a variable work schedule may refuse a work assignment if it does not fall:

• within a work schedule notified to him/her within the required period and/or;
• within the days of the week and the daily period during which the work can be performed.

The worker may not be treated adversely because of this refusal.

Late cancellation of a work assignment by the employer

If the employer cancels late (except in cases of force majeure) a work assignment provided for in the variable work schedule which is included in the notice communicated to the part-time worker, he must pay for the work assignment as if it had been performed.

Flexi-job worker

A part-time flexi-job worker employed under a variable work schedule must be notified in advance of his/her work schedule according to the same procedures as for a ‘regular’ worker.

Entry into force

The minimum rights described above enter into force on 10 November 2022.

Protection against adverse treatment and dismissal will be covered in a following Infoflash.

Source: law of 7 October 2022 partially transposing Directive (EU) 2019/1152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union, Belgian Official Gazette, 31 October 2022.