Yesterday, parliament approved the draft act granting employees
a right to leave in order to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
The draft act applies to all employees and employers, both in
the private and the public sector. However, in the public sector it
only applies to contractual employees. For civil servants, a
service exemption is often foreseen.
In order to encourage employees to get vaccinated as much as
possible, this draft act provides that workers are entitled to paid
leave, by analogy with the regulation on short leave (klein verlet
(NL) or petit chômage (FR)).
1. How does this work in practice?
- Employees have the right to be absent from work without loss of
pay in order to be vaccinated against COVID-19. They have this
right for the time necessary to be vaccinated (the time necessary
for the actual vaccination and the time necessary for travelling to
and from the place of vaccination).
