Going to the vaccination centre during working hours
August 2021 – Since 9 April 2021, workers can claim a leave of absence to leave work and go for a vaccination. A typical feature of short-time working is that the employer must continue to pay the salary as normal. What are the conditions?
Leave of absence
The leave of absence is derived from Article 30, § 1 of the Employment Contracts Act. This article states that: the worker has the right to be absent from work, with the maintenance of his normal pay, on the occasion of family events, for the fulfilment of civic obligations or civil missions and in the event of a court appearance.
Other reasons for a leave of absence are the birth of a child, the death of a relative, adoption, etc.
The same wording is used for vaccination leave, which has recently been introduced in a separate law as a special form of short-time work: The worker is entitled to be absent from work, with normal pay, in order to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus Covid-19.
In other words, the leave of absence is a scheme that allows a worker to continue to be paid despite being absent from work. Therefore, a leave of absence does not apply if the worker has an appointment to be vaccinated at a time when he or she is not required to be at work, for example, at the weekend.
Conditions
Continued remuneration applies only for the time required for the vaccination. It does not seem possible to be absent from the office for a whole day in order to be vaccinated.
The worker must give prior notice to the employer:
a) that he will be vaccinated; and
b) the time or time slot when this will be done.
The worker must actually use the small unemployment for the vaccination. The employer has the right to ask for proof of this, but it is sufficient for the worker to present the confirmation of the vaccination appointment, unless the confirmation did not mention the time and place of the vaccination: in that case, the invitation must also be presented.
Attention: the employer is not allowed to take a copy of this document or to transcribe it. The employer may only take note of the time of the appointment and then register the employee's absence as a small unemployment absence. He is also not allowed to note the reason for the short-time work.
Until 31 December 2021
This new small-scale unemployment is only temporary: it came into force on 9 April 2021 and will cease to be in force on 31 December 2021. The Government has the possibility to extend the measure by Royal Decree until 30 June 2022. Hopefully this will not be necessary.
