ILO committee calls on government to review criteria for nationally representative status

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An opinion delivered in March 2000 by the International Labour Office's Committee on Freedom of Association, in connection with a complaint by the ALEBA bank workers' trade union, calls on the Luxembourg government to review the criteria for establishing unions' "nationally representative" status, on the grounds that they breach the principles of freedom of association.

For a collective agreement to be valid, the Law on Collective Agreements of 12 June 1965 requires it to have the support of one or more of the "most nationally representative" trade union organisations. This excludes sectoral unions, company unions and enterprise- and site-based employee representatives. Only 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) have full nationally representative status at present (LU9812185N). In 1995, the government asked the tripartite Economic and Social Council (Conseil économique et social) for its opinion on possible amendments to the criteria for nationally representative status and associated entitlements, with a view to reforming the law. However, the Council was unable to identify solutions in its opinion (LU9705107F).

On 29 April 1999, the Luxembourg Association of Bank Staffs (Association luxembourgeoise des employés de banque, ALEBA ) signed a collective agreement in the banking sector (LU9905104F), but the Minister of Labour refused to register it (a legal requirement for an agreement to come into effect) on the grounds that the union did not enjoy national representative status (LU9912117N). ALEBA complained to the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva that the Luxembourg government was guilty of "interference in trade union affairs through the creation of monopolies that favour political unions".

The ILO's decision is expected in late May 2000. However the opinion of its Committee on Freedom of Association, a confidential document that is nearly always ratified by the ILO, was leaked to the Luxembourg press on 27 March 2000.

The Committee takes the view that, by imposing requirements for national and multi-sectoral representativeness, the Luxembourg government's reading of the 1965 law is contrary to the principles of freedom of association, since it may prevent the majority union in a sector (a position held by ALEBA in banking) from negotiating and signing agreements on its own and, by the same token, from defending the interests of the people it represents.

In 1998, the Minister of Labour rejected a social plan to accompany redundancies negotiated at the time of the merger between two banks on the grounds that the ALEBA was not a multi-sectoral trade union (LU9806166N). This is described as "undue government interference in collective bargaining" by the Committee, which "calls on the government to re-examine the situation in the light both of its conclusions, and of the measures that will be taken to ensure that Luxembourg practice complies with freedom of association."

In all probability, this opinion will bring forward the review of Luxembourg's legislation governing collective agreement, including a clearer definition of the criteria for nationally representative status, that the new government announced in August 1999 (LU9909111N).