Minister for the Interior Bernard Quintin (MR) has really ruffled the feathers of the police unions with his reform plans.
On Friday, 24 April, VSOA, NSPV, ACOD, and ACV will march in a united front from Rue de la Loi to the Brussels Palace of Justice to voice their discontent.
"The minister acts as if he has no say in the matter and is simply implementing the government’s plans. He is behaving like Bouchez’s puppet."
As already announced in the coalition agreement, Minister for the Interior Quintin wants to change the pension scheme for police officers.
Among other things, the intention is to reduce the so-called NAVAP scheme (non-activity before retirement), which allows officers to stop working four years before the statutory retirement age in exchange for a slightly lower pension, to two years. In the long term, the scheme is even set to be phased out completely.
Social consultations on the matter have yielded nothing in recent weeks, and now the cup has run over, according to the trade union representatives.
However, the disagreement over the reform of the NAVAP was merely the ‘last straw’, as many other frustrations ultimately caused the situation to boil over.
Take, for instance, the promised pay rise for police staff. "An agreement had already been reached on this with the previous government," explains Joery Dehaes of the NSPV trade union to Belga.
A previous action day by the police unionsA previous action day by the police unions in Brussels on 28 November 2022. Credit: Belga/ James Arthur Gekiere
"All that remained was to agree on the implementation details. But now the minister suddenly wants to renege on that. That is unacceptable."
The general increase in the retirement age and the reform of the method for calculating pension amounts (no longer based on the last ten years, but on the entire career, ed.), which means officers are left with "an average of 400 euros net less," were also things the unions had to swallow.
But it is above all the minister’s style and attitude that have clearly rubbed the social representatives up the wrong way in recent weeks.
According to Dehaes, Quintin is "unilaterally" putting his plans on the table, and they are apparently "take it or leave it," it seems. "The minister acts as if he is simply implementing the coalition agreement and has nothing else to say, but that’s not how it works. To me, he’s just the puppet of (Georges-Louis) Bouchez (the MR leader, ed.)."
Dehaes certainly understands that, due to the general rise in the cost of living, we will all have to work a little longer.
"But we have already made concessions. When I started working, my statutory retirement age was 58. Now it is 67. We certainly don’t feel superior to everyone else, but the differences are enormous. And the job of a police officer is, after all, a demanding profession. Quintin had promised he wanted to make the profession more attractive, but there is little sign of that yet."
The unions say they are still open to consultation. "We want to discuss and negotiate many issues, but social dialogue stands or falls on the fulfilment of previous agreements. If the minister reduces social dialogue to a mere formality to push through his own agenda, then we see no other option but to take industrial action."
The union representatives hope, in any case, that the social dialogue can then resume "in a proper manner". "As a police union, we have fought hard for these issues in the past. So we are not going to give them up just like that," added Dehaes.
