Employers' Organizations and the Politics of Welfare State Reform: The Case of Universal Basic Income in Belgium

The idea of introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has for years captured the interest of academics, policymakers, and activists worldwide. It has been widely debated, subject of various experiments, and is increasingly regarded as a potential reform to modern welfare systems. UBI scholars are now focusing on implementation challenges and strategies to make this idea a real tool for adapting welfare states in turbulent times. To live up to this goal, UBI has to be considered within the broader politics of welfare state reforms, since its prospects largely depend on the configuration of political coalitions and the preferences of key social partners. And while substantial research has been conducted on public opinion on UBI and (quasi-) UBI experiments, the attitudes of key political and social actors towards UBI remain underexplored. Among these, employers’ organizations have notably been absent from discussions on UBI’s political feasibility. Yet, especially in neo-corporatist systems, this type of actors wields important institutional power and has been granted, alongside trade unions, a central role in the social dialogue on socio-economic policy. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of policy documents and semi-structured interviews with representatives of major employers’ organizations, this paper focuses on the Belgian case as a particularly illustrative example of a coordinated and Bismarckian welfare state, and shows that these actors adopt a consistently sceptical, although nuanced, stance toward UBI. Even if they acknowledge some arguments presented by UBI proponents - such as administrative simplification, poverty reduction, and the need to address challenges posed by automation and digitalization -, they tend to favour alternative measures within the existing social protection system. The analysis demonstrates that employers’ organisations’ opposition to UBI is not only ideological but rooted in their institutional role and their interest in preserving contributory, employment-centred forms of social protection. Rather than supporting universal and unconditional income schemes, employers favour policy mixes combining targeted social protection and labour-market-oriented policies, which they perceive as more compatible with competitiveness, reciprocity, and social partnership arrangements. By focusing on employers’ organizations as collective political actors, this paper contributes to the literature on the role of organized interests in shaping welfare state reform trajectories. It highlights how resistance to UBI reflects broader conflicts over the direction of social policy change, deservingness criteria, and the governance of welfare states in advanced capitalist economies.