2023-11-25 10:04:56
Update
November 25, 2023
11:04
The Dinant labor court condemned Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement and the French Community for not having reinstated several teachers coming out of periods of incapacity. The Wallonia-Brussels Federation is appealing.
It’s quite a hare that has raised the Liège labor auditor. By obtaining the conviction, on October 13 before the Dinant labor court, organizing and regulating powers of official education in French-speaking Belgium, justice has put a stop – temporarily – to an unfortunate situation. Indeed, several public teachers, coming out of a long incapacity, were simply prohibited from returning to work and, in fact, pushed towards early retirement. Behind these decisions, questions of law and administrative consistency between federal and community injunctions.
The case begins at the start of the 2020 school year. After a long period of incapacity, a primary school principal in Dinant, born in 1971, wants to return to work. The fifty-year-old was in the middle of her reintegration process, this compulsory procedure aimed at gently returning a worker emerging from long-term disability to employment. The concern was that the school principal no longer fulfilled the conditions of her “mission leave”. In other words, this reintegration process, a federal standard supported by the code of well-being at work, was not covered by his leave. Therefore, Medexthe Administration of Medical Expertise, declared her permanently unfit for work.
Retirements far from being isolated
Faced with what is for her an administrative catastrophe, the school director filed a complaint to the Control of Well-being at Work once morest his employer, Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement (WBE), the organization which ensures the organizing power of French-speaking public schools, i.e. more than 30,000 employees.
WBE was “forced to subscribe to the approaches and requirements of the French Community in terms of reintegration pathways while knowing that these do not comply with the provisions of the code of well-being at work.”
The Control of well-being at work then realizes that the case of the director of the Dinant school is far from isolated, that reintegration journeys are no longer taken into account by WBE. His letters to the administration remained a dead letter: he alerted the Liège labor prosecutor, who opened a repressive case.
During the investigation, the general director of personnel of WBE, Manu Dony, was questioned as a suspect. He indicates in a hearing, taken up in the judgment, that WBE was “forced to subscribe to the procedures and requirements of the French Community in terms of reintegration journeys while knowing that these do not comply with the provisions of the code of well-being at work“. The administration is therefore clearly calling into question its political supervision.
Administration versus politics
The investigation succeeded in demonstrating that WBE, until 2020, made arrangements with the granting of days of leave in order to allow teachers who were unable to successfully complete their reintegration, while receiving remuneration. But then the government of the French Community demanded strict compliance with leave conditions.
A rigor which has led to grotesque situations, like those of the three teachers concerned by the legal case judged by the Dinant court. Are these three cases isolated? “There are many others. In fact, all those who have benefited from a ‘false’ reintegration journey will be automatically placed on early retirement”, indicates a source.
The French Community wants to ask a preliminary question to the Constitutional Court, highlighting the contradictory injunctions between the federal standard – the code of well-being at work – and the community standard.
WBE, for its part, believes that it was because of an overly restrictive decree framework that it was not able to respect its legal obligations. In fact, these are two standards that oppose each other: the decree on education of the government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on the one hand, and on the other hand the code of well-being at work, federal and supposed to apply to everyone. “Despite all the importance we attach to monitoring reintegration pathways, we have to deal with a status that imposes itself on us, and which has constrained us in the implementation of certain pathways. According to our interpretation, the FWB should help us find solutions”, observes Cécile Marquette, deputy general director, who also observes that “WBE is not condemned as an inattentive employer: the judgment confirms that in several cases, we proactively sought solutions.” WBE has around forty staff members undergoing reintegration.
When the government wants to make its administration pay
The Dinant labor court condemned Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement for not having respected the code of well-being at work, a criminal offense. The French Community is also ordered to “guarantee WBE of all convictions pronounced once morest him”.
The French Community, well aware of the consequences of such a judgment, filed an appeal this Thursday, via a 35-page long appeal request, which L’Echo was able to consult. She wishes to pose a preliminary question to the Constitutional Court, but also requests that WBE be dismissed and ordered to pay the costs of the two trials. Ambiance!
The summary
- The Dinant labor court convicted Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement (WBE) and its supervisory authority, the French Community, for a social criminal offense, namely non-compliance with the code of well-being at work for its employees.
- Three teachers were, in fact, prevented from returning to work once morest their will, because they did not meet the criteria for the “reintegration process”.
- In court, WBE and the political supervision opposed each other.
- The French Community has appealed the decision and wants the Court to submit a preliminary question to the Constitutional Court.
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