Service tickets in Belgium

CSC - Belgium

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 2.

What is a «Service ticket» ?

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 20103.

This is a service ticket

Name

Adress

What is a Service-ticket?

A “service ticket” is …– A kind of a check, a ticket– You buy it for 7,50 euro– You can use it to pay for 1 hour of “household-

services” = cleaning, ironing, preparing meals, shopping

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 20104.

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 20105.

Why service tickets?

Gouverment started in 2003 with the “service tickets” for 3 reasons:

1) to create extra jobs2) struggle against illegal (black) labour 3) better combination of work and family

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 6.

Where do you buy the Service ticket?

1 private company (Sodexo) has the right to emit the service tickets

Sodexo organises the circulation of the tickets

Sodexo gets paied by the Belgian Gouverment

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 7.

How does it work?

The customer buys the Service tickets

The customer chooses a Service tickets-company

ST-company and customer sign a contracte.g. 4 hours house-cleaning a week

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 8.

How does it work?

The company sends a Service ticket worker to the customer

The company is the employer, not the customer !

All arrangements are made between customer and company

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 9.

How does it work?

The costumer pays the company, 1 ticket for 1 hour work

The company pays the salary of the worker

The company sends the tickets to Sodexo and recieves 20,80 euro for every ticket

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 10.

How does it work?

The Service ticket company has to pay all costs with the 20,80 euro:– Salary + taxes + social security– Administration, organisation– Training– Insurance– Benefits

Working conditions

Maximum 38 hours a week Minimum wages:

– 1st year: 9,48 euro– 2nd year: 9,85 euro– 3rd year: 9,98 euro– 4th year: 10,08 euro

End of year bonus– 4,15% of salary

Payment of transport cost

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 11.

Financial

The customer pays 7,50 euro for 1 ticket

The customer gets a tax-reduction of 2,25 euro => the service ticket costs 5,25 euro !

Gouverment pays extra 13,30 euro for 1 ticket

Gouverment gives extra tax-reduction to the companies

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 12.

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 13.

Schematic

Gouverment

ST-company

Customer ST-worker

Sets the rules + subventions

Normal labour contractCommercial contract

X

SodexoTickets

Some figures

Year Used service tickets

2003 222.936

2004 5.619.745

2005 17.215.123

2006 32.123.919

2007 48.929.287

2008 65.154.366

2009 78.558.951

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 14.

Some figures

End 2009– 2.500 Service ticket companies– Over 90.000 Service tickets workers

(76.000 FTE)– Total cost gouverment 2009:

1.665.000.000 Euro

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 15.

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 16.

Evaluation

+ Positive* Domestic worker has a normal, legal labour-contract with social security

=pension, health care, unemployment benefit

* The gouverment sets the legal basis and minimum working conditions

* Organised social dialogue

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 17.

Evaluation

+ Positive* No real hierarchic relation between customer and domestic worker

* Flexibility in favor of workers

* Opportunities for low-skilled people

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 18.

Evaluation

- Negative* Enormous cost for society (tax-

payers)

* Almost totally dependend on gouverment subventions

* Low cost for customers = low respect for work

PERC - Budapest - 10 and 11 Feb 2010 19.

Evaluation

- Negative* Illegal, informal domestic works

still exists

* Fraude

* Difficult to “organize” the service ticket workers