How Serious Labour Exploitation Slips Through and What to Do About It
By Elise Blanpain, Nov 2025
What happened and why it matters
In the summer of 2022, inspections at a Belgian plant of Borealis, a global producer of polyolefin and base chemical solutions, uncovered 174 workers in exploitative conditions. Most were posted or single-permit workers, earning around €650 per month for six days’ work a week, a fraction of the legally required minimum in the Belgian construction sector. In 2022, the gross hourly rate in this sector was €14.61, amounting to over €3.000 per month for a standard full-time schedule.
In practice, however, these workers were engaged far beyond regular hours under contracts that concealed both the extent of their labour and the illegality of their situation. Many had been unwittingly employed on falsified work permits and housed in overcrowded, substandard accommodation, conditions that reflected the broader deception and precarity underpinning their employment.
As is often the case in large industrial builds, work flowed through complex, multi-tier subcontracting chains. In the following months, the authorities cancelled 317 work permits linked to the case. Some workers were initially classed as victims of labour exploitation, but as the case evolved, this changed and people saw their residence and work situation alter abruptly.
The Borealis case became a stress test for the EU: what happens when exploitation is serious, yet does not meet the legal threshold for trafficking? Belgian anti-trafficking law sets a high bar, requiring exploitation to reach “conditions contrary to human dignity.” In the Borealis case, authorities acknowledged significant abuse but concluded that many situations did not meet this threshold, leaving a large group of workers in a legal and administrative grey zone. That answer matters because it reveals how EU free movement and labour migration frameworks can unintentionally enable structural vulnerability. Similar patterns emerge in the transport, hospitality and construction industries across the EU. In theory, the necessary legislation is in place: the recast Single Permit Directive combines residence and work authorisation, making it easier to change employer if there are reasonable grounds to suspect abuse. The Employers’ Sanctions Directive penalises unlawful hiring, and provides a route for irregular workers in particularly exploitative conditions to claim wages. Under Article 13(4), they can also receive a time-limited residence permit linked to the duration of criminal proceedings for particularly exploitative employment. Furthermore, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive requires large companies to identify risks, prevent harm and provide remediation along their supply chains. Which leaves a harder question: where, exactly, do our systems falter?
Where systems falter
Fragmented governance can blur accountability for preventing and remedying labour exploitation, creating a system in which everyone and no one is responsible. Across different levels of government and within supply chains, duties are dispersed and incentives are misaligned, allowing exploitation to persist in the resulting gaps. In Belgium, this fragmentation is mirrored in the division of powers between the federal, regional and local levels. Coordination is slow, and long subcontracting chains further disperse liability, even when a prime contractor is overseeing the site.
This fragmentation is not an accident; it is a reflection of a regulatory design that prioritises market flexibility over accountability, creating an environment in which abuse can flourish, the very imbalance the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive aims to correct at EU level. Belgium’s federal structure creates legal overlaps and coordination issues, while EU-level directives depend on national enforcement cultures that vary significantly. Furthermore, economic incentives favour opacity, as subcontracting distributes risk downward. Together, these factors create an environment in which evasion is easier than enforcement.
Penalties are too weak to deter abuse, and access to wage recovery remains limited, which allows exploitation to remain profitable. Protection currently depends too heavily on formal recognition as a trafficking victim rather than on the harm experienced. Access to assistance, residence and work often hinges on this recognition, so when it is precarious or withdrawn, people can lose their status and livelihood overnight. Decisions made by labour inspectors do not have to be justified and are not subject to any appeal, which creates insecurity that pushes workers towards risk rather than cooperation. Compliant firms incur higher costs, while those that flout the rules benefit from coordination and enforcement gaps. Without real chain-level responsibility, businesses that cut corners maintain a competitive edge. In short, the system fails not because of one weak link, but because responsibility is so fragmented that no one is truly accountable.
What should change
- Make the Single Permit portable in practice. A permit that ties a worker to one employer creates dependency and deters reporting. The recast directive already allows for easier changes of employer and grants time to find new work without automatic withdrawal where there are reasonable grounds to suspect abuse. This should be reflected in clear administrative guidance and procedures that allow workers to change employers without endangering their status. Labour authorities should inform permit holders of their rights proactively and ensure that transitions between employers are processed promptly, shifting the balance of power back to workers and preventing abuse from being hidden by dependency.
- Facilitate safe reporting by separating protection from immigration control. All people, whether in the country legally or not, must be able to report exploitation without fear that their status will be used against them. The EU’s Employers’ Sanctions Directive provides for time-limited authorisation for irregular third-country nationals in particularly abusive conditions to work and reside while pursuing claims (Article 13(4)). However, Belgium has not fully transposed this directive. Creating such practical, time-limited authorisation would facilitate wage claims and cooperation. Without a clear distinction between protection and immigration enforcement, those who could expose exploitation will remain silent.
- Hold everyone in the supply chain responsible. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, now adopted at EU level, will require lead firms to identify risks, prevent harm and provide remedies across their supply networks, preventing responsibility from dissipating through long subcontracting chains. National implementation should be ambitious, not minimalist and backed by credible enforcement. Flanders has adopted chain-of-responsibility measures for contractors and their subcontractors (Decree of 27 June 2025), which are due to enter into force by 1 January 2026. Federal reforms remain pending. To ensure that remedy reaches those affected, Belgium should extend chain responsibility for wage arrears in high-risk sectors, so that opacity stops paying off and exploitation no longer gives firms a competitive edge.
- Align criminal law with labour-market realities. Retain trafficking offences and introduce a mid-level offence of aggravated economic exploitation, carrying the highest level of sanctions under the Social Criminal Code, Belgium’s framework for penalising serious breaches of labour and social law such as underpayment, excessive hours or social fraud. This offence should capture serious labour exploitation such as underpayment and excessive working hours that fall short of trafficking but are far more severe than administrative violations. Legal reform in Sweden (Section 1b, Chapter 4 of the Swedish Criminal Code) and Finland (Section 3a, Chapter 47 of the Finnish Criminal Code) aspires to an approach whereby a middle-tier offence coupled with robust labour law remedies can address issues that anti-trafficking law cannot. A reform of this kind would bridge the gap between administrative sanctions and anti-trafficking law, ensuring that serious exploitation is no longer overlooked or trivialised.
Deliver remedies in time
If fragmentation and dependency are what make exploitation possible, then timely remedies are what make enforcement credible. Where there are credible indicators of severe exploitation, workers should be granted immediate, time-limited residence and authorisation to work while they pursue claims, whether or not a trafficking charge follows. Specialist hubs can then support groups through processes such as wage recovery, social security claims and psychosocial care, with unions, NGOs and legal aid acting as integrated entry points. This approach keeps people in the lawful labour market, prevents compliant firms from being undercut by unlawful models and enables authorities to focus scarce criminal justice resources on the worst abuse, giving labour and social security rules real teeth. Failing to deliver timely remedies harms workers and corrodes trust in the rule of law, distorting fair competition and undermining the integrity of the labour market itself.
Conclusion
Borealis shows how a prosecution-centred system can fail to protect workers who endure serious exploitation that, while grave, does not satisfy the legal definition of trafficking in human beings. To restore fairness to the labour market, criminal law must be aligned with reality. Robust labour and social security rules must be enforced, protection must be separated from immigration control and corporate accountability must be ensured throughout the supply chain. If Belgium acts on these lessons, Borealis could mark a turning point that goes beyond making headlines and could provide a template for reform across the EU. Ultimately, the Borealis case prompts Europe to confront a fundamental question: are its labour and migration systems designed to serve markets or people? And can the future of work in the Union be defined by accountability rather than competitiveness?
For the full legal analysis and proposed reforms, see the article co-authored with Dr Amy Weatherburn, FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for European Law, KU Leuven:
« La lutte contre l’exploitation économique en Belgique : Leçons de l’affaire Borealis et des pistes de réforme pour une meilleure protection des travailleurs migrants » /
« De strijd tegen economische uitbuiting in België: Lessen uit de zaak-Borealis en pistes voor hervorming met het oog op een betere bescherming van migrerende werknemers ». (Revue belge de sécurité sociale / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Sociale Zekerheid, 2025, 4/66, pp. 541–567)
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