The employer wants to cancel my employment contract.

I signed a long term contract with an IT company and the procedure for the single permit went on well and i got my annexe 46 and my Visa. I was supposed  to arrive in Belgium in a week , but my employer called  and told me they have to cancel my contract because the project on which I was supposed to work on has been cancelled.

In the meantime, i have resigned  from my current company after my future employer explicitly told me by email to resign from my current company.

I have already told my landlord that i have to leave his house because am transferring to belgium. I am therefore now without a job and without a home, plus all the money spend in processing documents for the Visa and my flight tickets.

Please i would like to have some advice from anyone  who has had a similar situation or has an idea on what i can do. Thank you so much.

NB
I am not an EU citizen but i live in a Schengen country.
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Hello,

Sorry to hear this. I am not sure the employer can cancel a contract suddenly just before starting the job. You need to check the terms of the contract. If your contract says that you are employed specifically for that project only and nothing else, then probably it is valid. But as you say it is a long-term contract, then your job should at least also involve other tasks or projects within the company.

I suggest to check with the authorities who were responsible to issue the work permit if it is valid to cancel the contract and the permit just suddenly before starting.

Regards,
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@Husi123 thank your fastreply. it is not stated in the contract that i have been employed specifically for that project . Here is what is stated in the contract

"The employee agrees, as the need arises, to perform other activities, to the extent that they are consistent
with the skills and qualifications of the employee."


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@Xérès2022



Sorry to hear abou the employment termination.

Is the Start date mentioned in the contract, is it a fixed term contract or open ended?

If it is fixed term contract and has a start date mentioned on it, you can contact the employee syndicate in Belgium and they will guide you/

If it is open ended, then the employer can terminate the contract with 1 week notice even after you start the job in the initial days.


Good luck,
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That's definitely a consulting company... so yeah they took care to put no date for sure.
It's a classical story...



The only real solution is to ask them to not cancel the work permit yet, and maybe they'll find a new mission in the coming days/weeks, but it's a gamble :/
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@Thrilokhs

Thank you for your concern. It is an open-ended contract and a start date was mentioned in the contract but i could not start in that date because the single work permit was not yet out and the company told me by email that we will start when all the documents will be complete. They were always in touch with me all these days to know how the visa procedure was going and when i will be arriving in Belgium.
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@AlexFromBelgium

Yeah it's a consulting company.  Thank you so much for your suggestion regarding the cancellation of the work permit.

Can i find another job in belgium if they accept not to cancel the work permit?
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Contact any labor office, like CVA (union), the rules here are very complicated, they are very strict depending on the content of your case.


Good luck!
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@npenasco

thank you for your suggestion. I have seen some labour union's contact on the internet, i will contact them and explain my situation.
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In consultant agency it's a pre-agreement contract that only start if you do start the mission.
So it's a dead case already.

Only solution would be for them to find another mission for you, else they'll cancel the work permit.
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@AlexFromBelgium

in the contract it is not stated that it is a pre-agreement contract.

It is written  "Voltijdse arbeidsovereenkomst voor bediende – onbepaalde duur"  which was translated as "Open-ended employment contract – full-time" in english.
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yeah but somewhere in the contract you'll read: "if you start the mission"

At least, if they're not stupid / new consulting agency
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@AlexFromBelgium Hi Alex, in my contract which is a CDI, the start date is also not mentioned but the contract says that the start date will be determined when the work permit is issued and the contract will only come into effect if the work permit is issued.

Would that be an issue or is it normally the case? For me, I just found it a logical way to link the start day to the work permit.
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It depends what's your future job is.

If you're gonna be an employee to a consulting agency you can make sure that everything can be f**cked up if the mission is assigned to another agency.
It's super rare because consulting agency would not even bother to start the single permit process unless they're sure you'll work in this mission, but life... stuff can happened... :(

If you're gonna be an employee without any intermediate company, then you've nothing to fear.
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Hi Guy,


I have signed a permanent contract for a research position and applied for single permit in September2023, I got the WP in December but still waiting for single permit. my employer told me that they will cancel the contract if my single permit does not come by end of February.

The only term in my contract is


Artikel 1: Aanwerving

Deze arbeidsovereenkomst voor bediende wordt gesloten voor onbepaalde duur en gaat in op 15 Januarl 2024

Deze arbeldsovereenkomst wordt gesloten onder voorbehoud van het bekomen van de gecombineerde vergunning (verblijven/werken).

De aanvangsdatum kan wijzigen en dit in functie van het bekomen van de gecombineerde vergunning.


do you think it is legal to cancel my contract while they knew single permit takes long?

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OFC it is legal do you think HR is paid for nothing ... you can do nothing if they want to fire u, u dont even have legal insurance...

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