Belgian anti-dismissal safety net in the event of hard Brexit

On 29 March 2017 the United Kingdom notified the EU of its decision to leave the Union. A withdrawal agreement has been negotiated and agreed but has not yet been ratified. Furthermore, the deadline for withdrawal from the EU is extended until 31 January 2020.

1. If the withdrawal agreement is approved, a transitional period shall
   start until 31 December 2020, which may be extended until 31
   December 2022 at the latest. During this transitional period, the UK
   will continue to follow EU rules but will no longer sit in EU
   bodies.

2. If the withdrawal agreement is not adopted, we will have a hard
   Brexit with very serious consequences for the UK and also for the
   EU.

As a safety net, Belgium has decided to prepare itself for this last possibility. On 16 December 2019, a legislative proposal was introduced to maintain employment after the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union affected by the hard no-deal Brexit with the aim to avoid dismissals from employers. This legislative proposal is currently pending before the House of Representatives.

The legislative proposal aims to provide certain temporary measures for employers affected by a hard Brexit. The measures should prevent the affected employers from dismissing a group of employees and to give them the possibility to stabilise their business. It is also a safety net for potentially impacted employees to avoid redundancy due to Brexit.

The temporary measures include:

• Full or partial suspension of the employment contract within the
  framework of the specific regulation of economic unemployment in
  addition to the general regulation for blue-collar employees (a
  regulation of full suspension for a maximum of 8 weeks and a
  regulation of partial work for a maximum duration of 6 months) and
  for white-collar employees (a regulation of full suspension for
  maximum 8 calendar weeks per calendar year and a regulation of
  partial work for a maximum duration of 13 calendar weeks).

• Temporary individual deduction of work performance by 1/5 or a
  part-time employment.

• Temporary adjustment of working time by 1/5th, 1/4th or a 4-day week
  with a lump-sum reduction in wage costs per employee and per quarter
  for the employer.

In order to fall within the scope of the legislative proposal, the employer must submit a request for acknowledgement that it is affected at short notice by a decrease of at least 5% in turnover, in production or in the number of orders, by Brexit. Furthermore, if the employer is recognised, he has the duty to inform the works council, and in absence of a works council, the trade union delegation, stating the economic reasons justifying the use of the temporary measure.