No social elections in the construction sector after all

For many companies, 2016 will be the year for social elections. Companies that ordinarily employ an average of at least fifty employees are obliged to set up a Workplace Protection and Prevention Committee and hold elections for its members. In addition, companies that ordinarily have an average personnel of at least one hundred employees must set up a Works Council and hold elections for its members.

For many years now there has been an agreement in the construction sector (JC 124) with the employees´ organisations that they will not file any candidate lists for the social elections for the blue-collar and the white-collar workers of the construction companies. In this way, no social elections have to be organised and one works with contractually-agreed consultative bodies. 

For a long time it looked like such an agreement for these social elections would not be reached. Confronted with the time pressure, many companies in the construction sector thus began preparing the organisation of the social elections.

At the very last moment, however, an agreement was nevertheless reached between the social partners not to submit any candidate lists within the framework of the 2016 social elections. We note that for the moment an agreement has been signed only for the blue-collar workers. Just as in 2012, the negotiations with the white-collar unions are dragging on longer, and no final decision has been reached for them yet.

The agreement concerning the social elections is that no candidate lists will be submitted by the employees´ organisations. Concretely, this means that the social election procedure must be initiated and that a number of documents have to be communicated on days X-60, X-35 and X. Only on X+35 will the procedure be able to be discontinued due to a lack of candidates.

For more information on this topic, you can consult Sébastien van Damme (author) and Sara Cockx (author and practice group head).