European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legal regulations provides information on regulations in the Member States of the European Union and Norway which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change.
CAO 81 van 26 April 2002 ter Bescherming van de persoonlijke levenssfeer van de werknemers ten opzichte van de controle op de elektronische online communicatiegegevens
LAST UPDATE 2023 - THIS CONTENT WILL NOT BE UPDATED
Collective Labour Agreement 81 arranges the monitoring of electronic communication data in the workplace in Belgium. It regulates the monitoring of all forms of electronic online communication data, regardless of the carrier, transmitted or received by employees in the course of their employment, both internally and externally.
Employers may carry out monitoring for four main reasons:
They may not violate the personal privacy of employees and must act proportionally, processing only necessary data.
In terms of transparency employers must provide detailed information about the monitoring system, including what is being monitored, why, the duration of monitoring, data storage, and whether monitoring is permanent. Rights, obligations, prohibitions, and sanctions must be communicated, both individually and collectively.
In case of violations, the employer must discuss the infringement with the offender, giving the employee the opportunity to justify their actions and prevent future violations.
CA 81 does not regulate how access to and the use of online communication tools in the company should be governed; this remains the responsibility of the employer.
The standards in CA 81 can be clarified, supplemented, and adapted to specific situations at the sector and/or company level.
Since it is a National level collective agreement, all social partners had to formally agree with the CA before signing.
Eurofound (2023), Belgium: Employee monitoring and surveillance, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/employee-monitoring-and-surveillance/belgium
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), alongside a new classification of restructuring events involving changes in company location.
:quality(80))
Employers increasingly use tools such as email, SMS and messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal to communicate with employees. While these technologies offer both efficiency and convenience, their use in communicating sensitive information, particularly for notifying employees of dismissal, raises legal concerns. This article explores the legal framework on dismissals across the EU, with a special focus on the use of digital means for communicating employment dismissals. Drawing on examples from various Member States, it examines the legal validity of digital dismissals.
:quality(80))
In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, these companies are among the highest paying, with Eurostat data from 2022 indicating that workers in ICT had the second-highest median gross hourly earnings (surpassed only by earnings in the financial sector).[1] These layoffs were a shock, especially as the biggest companies had hired extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. What happened in the two years after this redundancy wave – was that the end of the cuts or did the companies start expanding again?
:quality(80))
In 2024, the automotive sector in the EU came to the fore in public and policy discussions. The focus was on the slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) sales, rising global competition, belated investments in new technologies, and the potential closure of production lines in Europe. A number of European car manufacturers and suppliers announced their intention to make large-scale redundancies and change long-standing collective agreements on job security and wages, while workers raised concerns amid demonstrations and industrial action.
:quality(80))