Social elections in the non-profit sector: the special rules
A 1,200-person hospital, a 60-bed care home, a network of non-profits sharing one management: the non-profit sector holds some of the largest worker communities in the country, and some of the lowest electronic-voting adoption rates. The social-election rules are the same as everywhere else, but three questions bite harder here: counting headcount, drawing the TBU, and classifying management staff. Here is how each is settled.
Non-profit status changes nothing about the obligation
First thing to clear up: a non-profit (ASBL / VZW) is an employer like any other. Being a not-for-profit exempts you from no social-election obligation. The thresholds are identical: 50 workers for a CPPW, 100 for a Works Council, counted per technical business unit (TBU).
What triggers the obligation is headcount, not the legal form or the social mission. A non-profit with 240 staff has exactly the same obligations as a company with 240 staff.
Real issue #1: counting headcount
In the non-profit sector, the headcount calculation is rarely trivial. The sector relies heavily on part-time, replacements and short contracts: nurses at 80%, care assistants on career break, replacement staff covering leave. Headcount is calculated on the average employment over a reference period, in equivalents, across all contract types.
In practice: a care home that "employs 48 people" off the top of someone's head can, once replacements and temp workers are properly counted over the reference period, exceed 50, and owe a CPPW it did not expect. The classic mistake is to reason from the number of people present on a given day rather than from the real average employment.
Real issue #2: drawing (or grouping) the TBU
This is where the non-profit sector stands out most. Two opposite movements coexist.
Grouping upward. Unlike a large company split into several TBUs, a legal entity whose sites each stay below the threshold has those sites grouped together to reach 50 or 100. A wing of 30 people and a unit of 25 in the same non-profit are counted together: combined, they pass 50 and trigger a CPPW.
Merging several entities. Conversely, several legally distinct non-profits that share a management, a site, a personnel policy form a single TBU, and their headcounts add up. This is the standard pattern of hospital groups and care networks: a "hospital" non-profit, a "care home" non-profit, a "services" non-profit, all run together, can make up one single TBU.
When in doubt, remember, the social criteria take priority over the economic ones: where people work together, under one HR management, there is a work community. For the detail of this split, read What is a "technical business unit" (TBU)? Explained with real examples.
Real issue #3: who counts as "management staff"?
The non-profit sector is full of supervisory roles whose electoral status is up for debate: chief physician, director of care, nursing manager, unit head. The question is never the job title, always the actual function.
- A person who holds a management function in the legal sense, representing the employer, taking decisions that bind the entity, does not vote and cannot stand as a candidate.
- A person who supervises a team without representing the employer is a voter, possibly in the executives college (for the Works Council, from 15 executives).
A nursing manager who organises the work of a floor is generally not management staff. An HR director who decides on hiring and firing is. The management-staff list is communicated on day X-60 and is one of the points that can be challenged before the labour court.
Why online voting is still rare here, and why that is changing
The non-profit sector stacks up every obstacle to paper voting: staff on staggered breaks, night shifts, workers with no computer, multiple sites. These are exactly the situations where online voting helps most, a care assistant votes from their phone between two shifts, without leaving the floor. The sector's historically low adoption rate is not a sign that online voting does not fit; it is a gap being closed.
In short
In the non-profit sector, the obligation depends not on non-profit status but on headcount, counted on real average employment, replacements and part-time included. The TBU groups upward when sites are small, and merges several legal entities when they share a management. Classifying supervisory staff turns on actual functions, not titles. Three calculations to make early, before day X-60 in late 2027.
To place these steps in the full timeline, read Social elections 2028: the countdown starts. And if your non-profit or hospital structure needs to get its TBU split right before late 2027, let's talk.
