Trade union campaigning underway for important representative elections

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Luxembourg's "social elections" of employee representatives on various bodies are due to take place in November 1998. The polls may well result in the elimination of FEP, the sole trade union with nationally representative status only for private sector white-collar workers. Will this be an opportunity for one of the two organisations hoping to take over from FEP, or will the future see no more than two representative unions?

November 1998 sees as important set of "social elections" of employee representatives in Luxembourg. Workers will be asked to vote for their employee committees/works councils, and for their representatives in their professional chambers and on the tripartite bodies which run the various health insurance and pension funds.

Legal background

Professional chambers

The law of 4 April 1924 organises the representation of employers and workers by socio-professional category through the setting up of "professional chambers" (chambres professionnelles) elected by secret ballot. These chambers are intrinsically linked to the procedure for adopting laws, and for regulations implementing laws, insofar as they must be asked to give an opinion on any legislation affecting them.

Those currently entitled to vote by postal ballot in the forthcoming elections to employee-side chambers are:

• about 93,000 white-collar workers, electing 38 representatives to the Chamber of Private Sector White-Collar Staff (Chambre des Employés Privés);

• about 101,000 blue-collar workers, electing 32 representatives to the Chamber of Labour (Chambre du Travail).

Employee committees/works councils

The law of 18 May 1979 on reform of employee committees/works councils (délégations du personnel) places a duty on all companies that regularly employ more than 15 workers under a contract of employment to arrange for the appointment of such committees.

The legislation gives employee committees/works councils the general task of safeguarding and defending the interests of the company's employees with regard to conditions of employment, job security and social issues. The role of the committee/council embraces both individual and collective issues, and its job is to prevent or resolve any individual or collective employer/employee disputes that may arise.

At present, almost 2,500 companies are covered by this law and nearly 145,000 workers will be voting on 11 November 1998, mostly in workplace ballots.

Company joint committees

Company joint committees (comités mixtes d'entreprise) were introduced under the law of 6 May 1974. They are made up equally of employer and employee representatives, and cover all private-sector companies based in Luxembourg and which employ an average of 150 or more workers over a three-year reference period. The employee representatives are appointed by members of the employee committee/works council.

The company's managing director must inform and consult the joint committee at least once a year on the company's current and prospective staffing needs, and on any training, refresher training and retraining implications for employees. The law gives the joint committee the general right to deliver an opinion on economic and financial decisions that could have a serious effect on the structure of the company and levels of employment. The committee also has the right to take part in joint decision-making (codécision) on: the introduction or running of technical equipment intended to monitor the behaviour and performance of employees at work; the introduction of, and alterations to, measures relating to occupational health and safety and the prevention of workplace accidents; the drawing up of, and amendments to, general criteria affecting the selection of staff for promotion, transfer and dismissal and at the recruitment stage: and the drawing up of, and amendments to, general criteria used in staff assessments.

About 100 employee committees/works councils will appoint their joint committee members after the social elections.

The importance to unions of national representativeness

Achieving "nationally representative" status (représentativité nationale) is of particular importance for trade unions in Luxembourg, as this entitles them to sit on numerous tripartite bodies. The significance of such bodies is illustrated by the Tripartite Coordinating Committee (Comité de Coordination Tripartite), which is required - after an examination of the overall economic and social situation and an analysis of the nature of unemployment - to give an opinion before a decision is taken on any government measures to stimulate economic growth and maintain full employment. For example, the Luxembourg National Action Plan on employment, in response to the EU Employment Guidelines for 1998 (LU9805158F), is based on recommendations drawn up by the Committee, whose membership includes representatives of nationally representative unions.

The national representativeness criterion is also important in terms of the legislation governing collective bargaining. Any employer requested by a representative trade union to take part in negotiations aimed at concluding a collective agreement is under a statutory duty to start talks.

Finally, the membership of the National Conciliation Office (Office National de Conciliation) consists of the Minister of Labour or a delegated substitute, who chairs proceedings, three employers' representatives and three employees' representatives, appointed by the Minister on the recommendation of professional organisations for employers and the most representative trade unions for employees.

The Office's job is to resolve collective disputes through an agreement reached by the representatives and the parties to the dispute; such an agreement is accorded the status of a new collective agreement. No strikes or lock-outs may be declared until the chair of the Office is of the view that all attempts at conciliation have been exhausted, and issues a "statement of non-conciliation" (procès-verbal de non-conciliation) which sets out the disputed points. The law states that the conciliation procedure involving the National Conciliation Office is mandatory. Any breach of this legislation is punishable under the law. A legal strike may be called only if it has the support of a nationally representative trade union.

Defining national representativeness

The law of 12 June 1965 on collective agreements grants nationally representative status to trade unions that can demonstrate their importance through the size of their membership, their activities and their independence (LU9705107F). At present, two trade union organisations are unanimously seen as being nationally representative for both blue-collar and white-collar employees in the private sector; they are the Luxembourg Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (Onofhängege Gewerkschafts-Bond Lëtzebuerg, OGB-L) and the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (Lëtzebuerger Chrëschtleche Gewerkschafts-Bond, LCGB).

The Federation of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Fédération des Employés Privés FEP) is currently considered as representative of private sector non-manual workers. However, this representativeness has come under increasing scrutiny over the last five years due to falling membership caused by the setting up of "dissident" movements and the absorption of some of its members by other unions (LU9805162N). The number of collective agreements involving FEP has also fallen sharply; the same applies to the union's representatives who are members of employee committees/works councils, some of whom have left the FEP en bloc.

The Minister of Labour and Employment has not yet withdrawn this union's national representative status; this is probably because it won five out of 33 seats in the most recent election to the Chamber of Private Sector White-Collar Staff in 1993. However, the 1998 electoral campaign was marked by an unexpected development, when in full swing.

FEP slate for white-collar Chamber rejected

On 18 September 1998, the FEP list of candidates for elections to the Chamber of Private Sector White-Collar Staff was rejected as failing to meet legal requirements by the deputy director of the Justice de Paix à Luxembourg, the body authorised to collate lists of candidates for professional chambers. This decision was reached on the grounds of incomplete documentation. There is no appeal, and as a result the FEP will no longer be represented in the Chamber of Private Sector White-Collar Staff.

In all probability, the FEP will be stripped of its nationally representative status in the next few months, and this will prompt a lot of questions about the future development of trade unions in Luxembourg. There are two rival bodies seeking to take the place of the FEP: the newly formed Confederation of of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Confédération des Employés Privés, CEP) (LU9805162N); and the Union of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Union des Employés Privés, UEP), which is backed by the Luxembourg Association of Bank Staffs (Association luxembourgeoise des employés de banque, ALEBA) and has already recruited a number of former FEP members.

Alternatively, if neither of these organisations gains representative status for private sector white-collar workers, it may be that OGB-L and LCGB will be the only two representative unions in future. This would inevitably result in a complete harmonisation of the statuses of white- and blue-collar workers - a process initiated by the law of 24 May 1989 on employment contracts which abolished most existing differences between the two categories of staff.

Commentary

Without doubt, the trade union movement will not be the same after the November 1998 social elections.

The big question is whether a nationally representative union defending solely the interests of private sector white-collar workers will survive. Following the decline of the FEP, two new organisations are vying for national representative status, but it is clear that there will probably be room only for one. Ultimately, a single organisation for all private sector white-collar workers seems to be the only solution if their "special status" is to be preserved

The last bastions of a distinct private-sector white-collar identity are their specific healthcare insurance and pensions funds, whose finances, unlike those of other funds, are generally considered to be "healthy." If there were no specific trade union for private-sector white-collar staff in the future, this could accelerate the move towards a single healthcare insurance fund and a single pensions fund for all workers. (Marc Feyereisen, ITM)