Reform of Court Clerks’ Status and Potential Problems: Unveiling the Truth of the Walloon Parliament

2023-07-17 16:28:00
The September 2022 article in La Libre

Between March 2020 and March 2021, the National Social Security Office (ONSS) is interested in the status of court clerks. Several problems related to the advantages granted to them are pointed out. The ONSS fines the Walloon Parliament. These well-known potential problems of the various offices which succeeded one another during successive legislatures and which knowingly had decided not to act, must therefore be resolved to better adhere to labor legislation.

The office validates the reform

It was towards the end of June 2022 that the clerk – who was responsible for working on the overhaul of the status of the agent – ​​submitted his reform project to the office of Parliament, the commissioner of this study. A few days later, a first press article comes out on the actions of the clerk and his way of treating his subordinates. Despite this, a few days later, on July 8, to be precise, the office validated the proposed reform.

One of the elements of this reform, we are told, was causing some agents to cringe. This concerns the early pension of Registry staff. An agent appointed on a permanent basis and who can display 25 years of experience may, between the ages of 59 and 64, request his layoff. The years worked as a temporary worker or as a contract worker are taken into account in the years of experience. This availability allows the agent to retain until retirement age a degressive waiting salary which varies according to age between 75 and 100% of the last salary received. During this period, the years of layoff are taken into account for the calculation of the amount of the agent’s pension. This also continues to receive their holiday pay and their end-of-year bonus. A very different status from that of a conventional worker, moreover in a context where the retirement age was pushed back by the Michel government a few years earlier.

The board reconsiders its decision

Finally, in January 2023, the office newly installed following the collective resignation of its predecessor decided to put the reform of the early departure of agents in the fridge. Currently, agents of the Walloon Parliament who have reached 25 years of seniority can therefore always ask to be placed on leave from the age of 59.

What will happen to Frédéric Janssens, the suspended clerk? “I hope that the members of the office will respect the procedure”

It would be too simple, no doubt, to sum up this whole affair to the reform of the statute of agents. But the disturbing concordance of certain decisions with the revelations released in the press deserves at the very least a little attention. Admittedly, the work of a large number of agents of Parliament is not easy. Schedules must sometimes be flexible, depending on the duration of parliamentary committees or plenary sessions. Nor is it a question of putting all the staff working within the registry on trial, but of pinpointing the proximity of various facts which perhaps owe nothing to chance. A good number of staff members are traumatized by this whole affair and the labor prosecutor, seized of fifteen complaints, will have to shed all the light and bring the necessary nuances to the way in which work was organized within the registry, when the It was directed by Frédéric Janssens.

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