Consultations with the social partners at the National Work Council have taken place on the Platform Work Directive. Additionally, meetings have been held with the competent ministries (the ministry of work, ministry of social security and social affairs and the ministry of justice).
The union representatives have collectively agreed that for the Platform Work Directive to be transposed effectively, a number of changes are required to Belgian labour laws, including:
- To clearly define who are the representatives of the “persons performing platform work”
- To make it possible for the trade unions to represent a worker before the civil court
- To have a process to review the compliance of platforms systematically
- To have a process to go from an individual legal decision on employment re-classification to a collective procedure for re-classification.
Unions are waiting on the government providing draft proposals before discussions will continue. The government has said that it does not want ‘gold plating’ and does not propose to change the criteria which the Belgian Government introduced in 2023, a position which is viewed critically by unions since the 2023 platform work law has so far not been an effective mechanism.