Posting of workers: on the way to toughening the fight against social dumping and unfair competition…?

The law of 20 December 2016 modified the secondment scheme for workers coming to Belgium on secondment or leaving Belgium to work on secondment elsewhere.

The purpose of this law is to deal with the issues of social dumping and unfair competition.

The law concentrates on four main areas:

• Protecting posted workers from Belgium to work in a country in the European Economic Area or in Switzerland;
• Defining the concepts of secondment and posted workers, along with the measures for controlling the working conditions;
• Introducing a specific joint liability scheme of the direct contractor for the payment of the salary in the construction industry;
• Setting up a European system of cross-border enforcement of penalties and administrative fines.

This article explains the scope of the law and its practical implications for companies working with posted workers, be they coming to or leaving Belgium.

Please note that the article is available in French language only. It was originally published in Wolters Kluwer in March 2017.