After a day of negotiations, the federal government has reached an agreement on mandatory vaccination in the healthcare sector.
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Healthcare workers who have not been vaccinated between January 1 and March 31 will be able to continue working if they are tested every 72 hours. Otherwise, a suspension with temporary unemployment will follow. After 1 April, the healthcare worker will in principle be dismissed by operation of law and will be entitled to severance pay, unless the staff member opts for a further suspension of his employment contract. Then he will receive no wages and no benefits. The option to opt for further suspension is new.
Resists
The top ministers of the De Croo government were all day together to avoid a government crisis after the PS had reconsidered the agreement reached earlier on compulsory vaccination in health care. On Monday, the core cabinet already gave the green light to the law that makes the corona vaccine mandatory for staff in the healthcare sector. Although his deputy prime minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne had given his approval, the PS joined the resistance. The party and its chairman Paul Magnette did not accept that health care workers should fear dismissal as long as there is no mandatory vaccine for the entire population. And so the prime minister had to go to the negotiating table again with his seven deputy prime ministers.
With the agreement, the government is implementing the decision of the Consultation Committee of 17 September, it sounds. The proposal now still has to go to the Council of State and the National Labor Council, after which the text still has to pass the competent committee and the plenary meeting of the House. The government will shortly also present the bill to the social partners. The unions oppose mandatory vaccination in health care. The French-speaking Christian union announced strikes, today the socialist one followed.
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