2. Protection of pay and purchasing power

Protecting jobs and the purchasing power of households remains our priority. We therefore not only demand a cap on energy prices, but we also want to strengthen wages and social rights. Automatic indexation is essential to protect our purchasing power.

2.1 Our automatic indexation system protects us – but only partially

Automatic indexation remains the main protective mechanism against the loss of purchasing power. In terms of the fall in real wages (this is the way pay changes to take the rise in prices into account), the loss remained relatively limited in Belgium compared with neighbouring countries in 2022. Only France fares better than us, because energy prices have been capped for some time. Also, in Belgium, we will make up for this loss in 2023 due to indexation applied with a slight delay.

But automatic indexation does not offer complete protection. For many workers, automatic indexation occurs only once a year, so they lose purchasing power at other times throughout the year. On the other hand, we should not forget that there is also a significant proportion of workers who do not benefit from indexation.

A number of sectors have no automatic indexation system. This affects around 52,000 employees. However, some workers can rely on company agreements that provide for indexation.

In other sectors not all wages are indexed, but only the minimum amounts for the sector are indexed. 255,000 employees work under these joint representation committees.