Opening of the Social Pact, 1944 | Brussels, National Archives of Belgium, archief VBO 1394
The Social Pact
Social Security and the Welfare State
On 20 April 1944, while the war was still raging, a number of trades union leaders and employers signed the ‘Preliminary Draft Declaration on Social Solidarity’. The proposals in that document, better known as the Social Pact, brought about a radical change in society.
Before 1940 employees had limited social protection. Trades unions and employers’ organisations could not agree on its extent. But the compulsory measures of the Nazi occupier and the radicalisation of the workers’ movement during the war brought them closer together.
In 1941 a few employers and heads of trades unions started negotiating. The result was the Social Pact. In it they agreed to set up a permanent consultation system between trades unions and employers’ organisations, and to build up a strong system of social security.
After the liberation the Socialist Minister of Labour and Social Affairs did not let the grass grow under his feet. On the basis of the agreement reached he drafted a bill introducing social security. In the following decades the Social Pact acquired an almost mythical status, as the foundation of the welfare stateafter English welfare: supplementary payments. .
Ghent, Amsab-ISG, fo003470
Women workers block the factory gate of the sewing yarn factory Filature et Filteries Réunies in Aalst during the general strike of 1936. By withholding their labour for weeks on end, employees were able to force employers to concede, for example, one week’s paid leave.
Social Security and the Welfare State
At the end of the 19th century, thanks to the struggle of the workers’ movement the first forms of social protection emerged. Unemployment funds, health insurance and pension funds had to insure workers against unemployment, sickness and old age. They were mostly voluntary insurance schemes and employers seldom contributed. The initiatives did, however, often enjoy the support of local or national government.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s unemployment was on a huge scale. In the West many people had a growing conviction that stronger social protection was necessary. In Belgium the Social Pact of 1944 was the springboard to help accomplish this.
Immediately after the war there was for (almost) all employees compulsory insurance against sickness, injury and unemployment, together with systems for pensions and child benefit. Both employees and employers paid contributions towards these. The government controlled and subsidised the system. Trades unions, health insurance schemes and child benefit funds dealt with the payments.
Social security was not perfect. The self-employed and some employees were at first excluded. Young people and women often lost out. The system was based mainly on full-time working, adult, male breadwinners. Still, social security formed the basis of the postwar welfare state.
Focal points
Leuven, KADOC-KU Leuven
From 1960 on, interprofessional agreements provided new social advantages. Rerum Novarum procession of the Christian workers’ movement in Antwerp, 1962.
Trades Unions and Employers Become Social Partners
Even before the Second World War workers and servants were no longer powerless in dealing with their employers. Thanks to their great following and successful strikes the Socialist and Christian trades unions had won recognition as representatives of employees. From 1919 on, for example, there were in a number of economic sectors joint committees in which trades unions and employers negotiated on wages and working conditions.
But except in a number of large companies the trades unions had little input. For that reason ‘class struggle’ remained more important than consultation. Better social conditions were won by employees through action. The general strike of 1936, which went on for weeks, secured, for example, the first legally binding paid holiday of six days per year.
The Social Pact heralded change. Discussion on an equal footing between employees and employers must become the norm. New laws enshrined that principle in official consultative bodies, from the national Central Economic Council, through joint committees per industrial sector, to works councils in larger companies. Strikes were still not ruled out, but the expectation was that cooperation would be more important than strife.
The fact that the consultation system worked well for the next few decades, was closely connected with postwar economic growth and the rise in productivity. The numbers of social conflicts declined. From 1960 on trades unions and employers entered into interprofessional agreements, in which for all employees in the private sector a basic package of social benefits was agreed.
Ghent, Amsab-ISG, fo023944, Dieter Telemans/rights SOFAM Belgium
The Flemish social partners (trades unions and employers) in discussion with the Flemish government, 1998.
Current Challenges for the Welfare State
Even today social security and social consultation determine society to a great extent. But both also face great challenges.
From the 1970s on economic crises complicated the financing of social security. High unemployment levels produced less income and higher expenditure. Employers became less keen on contributing to a system with one of the highest wage costs in Europe. For them international competitiveness became more important than productivity. Some employers even questioned social consultation: they no longer believed in great agreements between trades unions and employers’ organisations.
Moreover, society itself was changing. After the Second World War thanks to a babyboom there was no shortage of labour and ‘full employment’ was a policy aim. But in the 21st century the babyboomersthe two decades after the Second World War had a high birth rate, hence babyboom. retired and there were less younger people to take their place. As a result pension costs rose, while the contributions of new employees fell.
And then there is the awareness that the people who need social security most, often benefit less than those who are already in a stronger position socially and financially, since that last group is quicker to find its way to all kinds of benefits and advantages. New forms of flexible working also give less access to social security. The problems of poverty turn out not to be easy to solve.
Discover more on this topic
Panorama
Bron: VRT archief, KADOC,Smalfilmstudio, Archief Emiel Hendriks – 12 mei 1983
Histories – Achiel Van Acker , Journaal
Bron: VRT archief, AMSAB – 26 jan 1999
Non-fiction
Wat zoudt gij zonder ‘t werkvolk zijn? De geschiedenis van de Belgische arbeidersbeweging 1830-2015
Van Halewyck, 2015.
De schaduw van het interbellum België, 1918-1939
Lannoo, 2017.
De christelijke arbeidersbeweging in België
2 dln., UPL, 1991.
Het Sociaal Pact van 1944. Oorsprong, betekenis en gevolgen
VUBPress 1995.
Het Sociaal Pact van 20 april 1944: kanttekeningen bij een politieke tekst
Brood & Rozen, 2015, 4, p.26-49.
Sociaal-economisch overleg in België sedert 1918
VUBPress, 1995.
Een geschiedenis van het sociaaleconomisch overleg in Vlaanderen (1945-2010). 25 Jaar SERV
Academia Press, 2010.
Wij zijn de AC: 100 jaar Algemene Centrale ABVV, 200 jaar syndicale geschiedenis
AMSAB, 2008.
De beginjaren van de sociale zekerheid in België, 1944-1963
VUB Press, 2014.
In naam van de sociale vooruitgang: de rol van de overheid in het sociaal overleg in België (1944-1981)
Acco, 2007.
Fiction
Groenten uit Balen
De Bezige Bij, 1972.
Het koekoeksjong
Kritak, 1995.
Moeder, waarom leven wij?
Houtekiet, 1999.
