Between 13 and 26 May 2024, employees of Belgian companies will go to the polls. Every four years, they elect their (new) representatives to the Works Council and the Committee for Prevention and Protection at Work. What are the functions of these consultative bodies, in which organisations do social elections take place and how do they take place?

Through social elections, workers get a say in the main consultation bodies within their companies. The benefits are multiple: employees feel heard, and are involved in the (prevention) policy, they know what's going on in the workplace and can contribute ideas or solutions while employers keep their finger on the pulse of what's happening in the workplace. 

The voting is done for:

• The Works Council (WC)
• The Committee for Prevention and Protection at Work (CPPW) 

The delegation is chosen from the organisation's employees. The Works Council keeps an eye on the economic and financial health of the company. To do so, it watches over staffing levels, productivity, competitiveness and future prospects, among other things. The CPBW plays a key role in the field of prevention and well-being.

The size of the company determines whether or not you need to organise social elections and for what purpose:

• Does your company have fewer than 50 full-time employees? Then you don’t need to have an election. In this case, employees have a say through employee representation or direct employee participation.
• If you have at least 50 employees on average, you should organise social elections for the establishment of a CPPW.
• If you have at least 100 employees on average, the social elections will designate both CPPW and Works Council representatives.

Attention! Temporary workers are also included in the calculation of your average workforce.

The entire election procedure takes exactly 150 days and is strictly regulated by law according to a fixed election calendar. If you do not respect it, the result will be invalid.

At the latest two days after the elections, you must post a message with the results in the same places where the date of the elections was announced (or would be announced, in case of electronic announcement). The message will be displayed for at least 84 days.

In order to be eligible as a personnel representative, an employee must:

• be employed under a contract of employment or apprenticeship contract;
• be at least 18 years old (or 16 years for representatives of the young workers) and younger than 65 years (or 25 years for representatives of the young workers);
• not be a member of the management, nor be a prevention or confidential adviser;
• be employed in 2023 for at least six consecutive months or nine months with interruption in the legal entity or technical business unit formed by the different legal entities.

The GDPR defines how you handle data. In the case of the social elections, this means, in concrete terms, that you:

• Include the procedure for social elections in the processing register.
• Inform your employees about the (legal) basis of the processing of their data.
• Avoid random distribution of voter lists: provide a secure platform that is only accessible to employees with voting rights.

On the website of FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue (FOD WASO) you can find:

• Theme page social elections 2024 (Dutch)
• Theme page Committees for Prevention and Protection at Work (Dutch)