Of counsel Pieter Pecinovsky (also Affiliated Senior Researcher at KU Leuven and lecturer at ULB) and associate Sofya Buelens (also assistant at VUB), both members of the VOW employment team, will speak on 10 March 2022 at the Abilways Conference on Public Sector Personnel in the DoubleTree Hilton hotel in Brussels.
Pieter and Sofya will give a presentation about the judicial control of the manifestly unreasonable nature of dismissals of contractual public sector staff. In the private sector this issue is governed by national Collective Bargaining Agreement no. 109. However, in principle, such a CBA cannot apply in the public sector. The absence of specific regulations for contractual oublic sector staff has caused an important discussion in case law and doctrine. During their presentation, Pieter and Sofya will focus on the views of the Belgian labour courts on this issue. They will look at the case law to answer the following questions:
- Do labour courts apply CBA no. 109 in the public sector?
- Which principles and criteria do labour courts apply when assessing the dismissal grounds of contractual public sector staff?
- Which compensation can contractual public sector staff claim before the labour courts in case of (manifestly) unreasonable dismissal?
- What lessons can be drawn from the case law of the labour courts concerning the justification for dismissal (also with regard to the private sector)?
They will also offer practical tips for public employers when preparing a dismissal of contractual public sector staff.
The conference will be held in Dutch and will simultaneously take place in Brussels and online on 10 and 11 March 2022.
You can register for the conference through this link.