The Labour Deal - The Act Of 3 October 2022 On Various Labour Provisions

• Published date: 22 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Contract of Employment, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations
• Law Firm: L&E Global

1 INTRODUCTION

1. The previous federal government had its "jobs deal" in 2019, but the current De Croo government also wants to make its mark on employment law with a deal, specifically the so-called "labour deal". In fact, this deal was already announced in the coalition agreement. 1 A first concretisation of some of the components of the labour deal was included in the federal budget agreement in October 2021 in which, for example, the four-day working week and night work for e-commerce were put forward. 2 However, it took until 14 February 2022 until a political agreement was reached between the federal majority parties where the various elements took shape. This resulted in a preliminary draft law that was submitted to various advisory bodies. 3 Perhaps most noteworthy here is that the social partners within the National Labour Council did not agree and delivered a divided opinion to the government. 4 The social partners were not set up with the fact that they had not been involved in the creation process of the deal beforehand and that they were only allowed to give their opinions afterwards. 5 In any case, without too many changes, the labour deal was submitted to Parliament on 7 July 2022 as the "draft act on various labour provisions" 6 and this bill was passed on 29 September 2022. On 10 November 2022, the Act of 3 October 2022 on various labour provisions was published in the Official State Gazette.

2. Below, we elaborate on the main parts of the labour deal. Most of them concern measures on working time law, some have more to do with dismissal law, but there are also other topics, with an individual right to training and provisions for platform workers being the most prominent. Just about every measure has its own chapter in the law, with its own scope of application (which, unfortunately, is usually not explicitly included) and different entry into force provisions. Unfortunately, the variety of measures and their complicated legal explanation make the legal text difficult to fathom. Below, therefore, we will briefly address some consequences and interpretation issues. We start with the working time measures, followed by the dismissal measures and end with the platform economy, the individual training right and the other measures. For each section, the entry into force and scope are clarified (as far as possible).

2 7-DAY NOTICE PERIOD FOR VARIABLE WORK SCHEDULES

3. The first measure (Chapter 2 of the Act) concerns the extension of the...