Sectoral agreement 2019 - 2020 for joint industrial committee 200
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The social dialogue in Belgium is organized on 3 levels: inter-sectoral/federal, sectoral and company level. At the end of April of this year, the wage norm and several employment measures which serve as the basis for the negotiations on a sectoral level, have been determined on a federal and inter-sectoral level.
Within JIC 200 these negotiations have been finalized, resulting in a sectoral agreement for the years 2019-2020 (valid from 01.01.2019 until 31.12.2020). We would like to provide you hereby with an overview of the most important decisions for the upcoming two years in your sector of industry.
1. Wages
The sectoral agreement provides for an increase of the actual salaries and the minimum wages by 1,1% as from 01.09.2019. With this increase, JIC 200 uses the maximum salary cost development laid down by the Belgian government.
The above mentioned increase of the actual gross salaries is not applicable if the company provides for an equivalent benefit according to its own terms. This equivalent benefit could be an actual salary increase and/or other benefits increasing purchasing power. Important to note is the fact that the benefit needs to be recurring as from 01.01.2021 onwards. The following terms should be taken into account when introducing an equivalent benefit:
- In companies with a labour union delegation, the equivalent benefit needs to be concluded in an agreement on company level, at the latest when the salaries are paid in September 2019.
- In companies without labour union delegation, the equivalent benefit needs to be communicated in writing and on an individual basis to each employee when the salaries of the month of September 2019 are being paid;
- Yearly salary increases received by the employees based on scales applicable in the sector or in the company (e.g. increase of the salaries based on experience or seniority) are not to be taken into account for the 1,1% increase of the actual salaries.
Attention! For employers who employ white collar as well as blue collar workers in the same business activity, a special scheme applies if the blue collar workers in the company are part of a sectoral pension plan and the white collar workers do not benefit from a supplementary pension scheme or have a less beneficial scheme. These companies will need to pay a temporary annual premium equal to a salary increase of 1,1% into a supplementary pension plan for their white collar employees.
Transport: as from 01.07.2020, a bike allowance equal to 0,10 EUR per actual travelled kilometer (maximum 40km going both ways per day) is introduced. This bike allowance only applies for employees who regularly cycle to work and cannot be accumulated with other interventions in the commuting travel with the exception of an intervention for public transport.
2. Unemployment scheme with company allowance and time credit
For time credit on specific grounds, JIC 200 applies the general rules as they are applicable in collective labour agreement n°103. This implies that employees will benefit from 51 months of time credit for reasons of care taking and from 36 months for training purposes, given that they meet the conditions.
For time credit in view of landing positions (career wind-down), JIC 200 already had the possibility of 1/5th time credit with a statutory allowance for employees as from the age of 55 on the condition that they could demonstrate a long career (35 years), a heavy and arduous profession or 20 years of night work and provided that they had a seniority of 2 years in the company. A half-time scheme with a statutory allowance is possible as from the age of 57 under the aforementioned conditions. These schemes of time credit have been extended for the period 01.07.2019 until 30.06.2021.
The unemployment scheme with company allowances is possible as from the age of 59 for a long career with night work, for a heavy and arduous profession and for a very long career (40 years) according to the conditions as determined on a sectoral level.
3. Training
Similar to what the previous sectoral agreements already provided for, this agreement stipulates that the employer needs to offer the employees a number of days of training, depending on the volume of employees in the company.
