Koen Vangoidsenhoven, Director of the Chambre Belge des Déménageurs (CBD (Belgian Chamber of Movers)), has drawn attention to what he believes to be unfair trading practices in a letter to the Directorate-General for Infrastructure and Logistics of the European Parliament.
The letter relates to what he believes to be a growing practice in the moving sector: quotes that are not transparent or that deliberately conceal the real costs.
Koen said that recent reports show that this problem is occurring more frequently in both the Netherlands and Belgium. But also, in a tender issued by the European Parliament, the CBD found that the moving contract was awarded to a moving company that submitted a quote showing they charged far below the minimum wage cost applicable in Belgium for their moving personnel.
The letter from CBD to the Directorate-General was as follows:
“The moving sector in Belgium is facing growing challenges related to fraud and social dumping, which weaken not only companies that respect the rules, but also the entire profession and the workers who practice it.
As the Belgian Chamber of Movers, we would like to draw your attention, as an institution in charge of tenders, to the importance of ensuring fair and transparent market conditions. Many bidding companies do not comply with legal obligations regarding social law, allowing them to display abnormally low prices, often at the expense of working conditions and employee rights.
We remind you that by respecting the social laws in force, the wage cost of a mover is on average 28.58 EUR per hour. This cost therefore includes only the minimum wage, other direct/indirect costs, but not the profit margin or VAT. Any significantly lower price should raise increased vigilance regarding the practices of the company concerned.
In this context, we encourage you to integrate rigorous selection criteria in your tenders to ensure compliance with social standards and prevent abusively low offers from distorting competition. The fight against fraud and social dumping is a collective responsibility that requires increased vigilance and strengthened compliance requirements.”
The reply was as follows:
“In response to your letter, I inform you that the signing of the contract resulting from the tender is suspended as of March 5, 2025. This suspension is intended to conduct an additional examination of the submitted offers.
Consequently, we will ask the companies concerned to provide details on the composition of their prices, with communication of all mandatory charges included, in particular the hourly cost in accordance with the provisions of the Joint Committee for Moving CP140.05, social contributions, allowances and bonuses, insurance costs, as well as your profit margin.
Please note that the required data will be analysed by the European Parliament in complete confidentiality, without prejudice to legitimate commercial interests.
If, following the analysis of the aspects raised above, the European Parliament considers that the reasons that caused the suspension of the signature no longer exist, we will proceed with the signing of the contract.”
Koen said that the problem is that tenders are a race to the bottom ...
Photo: Koen Vangoidsenhoven.