- Leila Mstoian - Marcel Houben
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The statute creates a new framework within which employees is given the possibility to donate
conventional days off to colleagues in order to allow them to provide their child, younger than 21
years, with the absolutely necessary care in the case of a particularly serious illness, handicap
or a particularly serious accident.
In principle, the system is to be introduced by collective labour agreement enter within the
joint labour-management committee.
The arrangement can be implemented by collective labour agreement at company level if no collective
agreement has been concluded within the joint labour-management committee within 6 months following
the filing of a request to enter into such collective labour agreement by an organisation,
represented in the joint labour-management committee, with the chairperson of the joint
labour-management committee. This is subject to the condition that all trade unions represented in
the union delegation have signed the agreement.
In the absence of a union delegation, the system can be set up by the work regulations.
A number of rules have to respected:
- the goal of the regulation is to offer to an employee the possibility to take care of a child, younger than 21 years, of whom the employee is assuming the caretaking and for whom a continued presence and the absolutely necessary care taking is absolutely indispensable because of a particularly serious illness, handicap or accident;
- the employee is either the parent in first degree of the child and is living under the same roof, or the partner of the parent of the child, living under the same roof with the child and in charge of the daily education; if these persons do not take the advantage of the possibility, an employee who is the parent in first degree of the child, can call upon the possibility even if he does not live under the same roof with the child;
- in order for the employee to call on the regulation, he must have exhausted all vacation days and days of rest;
- legal vacation days can not be donated; supplemental conventional vacation days can be donated, as well as the days of compensation rest within the framework of work time reduction.
The employee, who wishes to benefit from the arrangement, must file his request with the
employer with an indication of the number of requested days. The maximum is fixed at two weeks per
request. The request is renewable.
The employer informs, on his turn, the personnel members about the request and the employees, who
are willing to donate conventional days off, confirm their willingness to the employer together
with the confirmation that they waive their right to payment of the salary for the days off so
donated.
The employer must agree with the donation of the days off.
The employer sees to it that the requesting employee, as well as the donating employee remains
anonymous.
During the days off, the employment contract of the requesting employee is suspended with payment
of the salary.
