New trade union federation created

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In February 2003, four white-collar trade unions in Luxembourg – ALEBA, UEP, NGL and SNEP – created a new federation. The immediate aim of the alliance, known as ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP, is to present a single list of candidates at forthcoming elections of employee representatives. In the longer term, the unions are seeking closer cooperation and recognition as being nationally representative.

On 10 February 2003, four trade unions - the Luxembourg Association of Banking and Insurance Staff (Associations luxembourgeoise des employés de banque et d’assurances, ALEBA), the Union of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Union des employés privés, UEP), the Neutral Union of Luxembourg Workers (Neutral Gewerkschaft Luxembourg, NGL) and the National Union of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Syndicat national des employés privés-Rénovateurs, SNEP) - signed common statutes and joined forces in a single trade union federation with a membership of 20,000.

'The trade union federation represents all four unions, and will be a single bloc and participant at the social elections,' stated the general secretary of the new federation to be known as the ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP. Although the immediate objective of the four union is to present a single list of candidates at the 'social' and 'professional' elections of employee representatives on various company and national-level bodies (LU9810172F) to be held on 12 November 2003, the new federation aims above all, according to its president (and former ALEBA president), 'to define itself through its independence from the political parties'. The final stated aim is eventually to form a single trade union body that will acquire unchallenged nationally representative status (see below).

'Third pillar' of Luxembourg trade unionism

The new body has been presented as a 'third pillar of Luxembourg trade unionism', alongside 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). Speaking in support of trade union pluralism, the general secretary of ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP stated that the aim of the new federation will be 'to work together in a plain-speaking, loyal manner for freedom of association and in the interest of workers'.

The new federation will be open to other members, and the composition of the executive committee will be determined on a proportional (to the membership of the participating unions), and not an equal, basis. For the immediate future, working together will not mean a complete merger of the four unions involved, which will continue to manage themselves individually. The unions are aware that they now have to work extremely hard as 'internal problems such as finance and a large number of administrative tasks must still be resolved, as it is a question of constructing not just a basic structure of rules, but a real pillar'.

The new organisation will aim for absolute independence from political parties: the immediate consequence of this has been that the president and general secretary of NGL, both of whom are members of the Chamber of Deputies, have not sought office in ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP. The representatives of the new federation have made a special point of mentioning that they are the only politically independent organisation, highlighting that LCGB and OGB-L have certain links with the two main political parties, the Christian Social Party (Parti chrétien social, PCS) and the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (Parti ouvrier socialiste luxembourgeois, POSL).

The various positions that have been allocated in the federation will have to be confirmed at the first official congress of ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP, which will take place not later than the beginning of July 2003.

Nationally representative status seems assured

The creation of ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP comes at a time when the rules on the 'representativeness ' of trade unions are being revised. Representative status brings unions various rights, such as concluding collective agreements. The president of the new federation has stated that it will be more nationally representative than ALEBA alone, as it will have a total membership of 20,000 - ALEBA has 12,000 members, NGL 5,000, SNEP 1,500 and UEP 600.

The background is that on 5 November 2002, in response to administrative court rulings which overturned existing practice by awarding a sectoral trade union, ALEBA, nationally representative status (LU0011152F), the Minister of Labour and Employment submitted a bill dealing with collective labour relations, the regulation of collective labour disputes, and the National Conciliation Office (Office National de Conciliation, ONC) LU0211102F). Among other matters, this bill provides a new definition of nationally representative status, in particular introducing a distinction between trade unions justifying general nationally representative status and unions justifying representative status in a particularly important sector of the economy.

According to the bill, in order to qualify for 'general nationally representative status', trade unions must demonstrate a degree of industrial relations influence at national level, and possess the necessary effectiveness and power both to take on the responsibilities that flow from such a status, and to be able to sustain any major conflict of industrial relations interest at national level. In detail, they must:

1. undertake effective activity in most economic branches and regions of the country (this presence is to be assessed on the basis of results obtained by unions in the most recent elections of representatives on company employee committee s);

2. have obtained an average of 20% of the total votes cast by both blue- and white-collar workers in the two most recent elections to the professional chambers for these two categories of staff (LU9810172F), and an average of 15% in each of the two categories; and

3. undertake action that is diversified both materially and geographically.

When this bill was presented, ALEBA announced that it 'lacked objectivity and impartiality, and favoured the two nationally representative trade unions' (OGB-L and LCGB) and, through the introduction of new representativeness criteria, purely and simply sought to exclude ALEBA. To obtain general nationally representative status, a union organisation must have members among both white- and blue-collar workers. This is not the case with ALEBA, and the union believes that the new provisions are 'quite simply an attack on freedom of association'.

However, examining the current configuration of the trade union movement, it can be concluded that the new alliance meets the former criteria of representativeness as they were understood before the recent decisions of the administrative courts. All the parties involved have always agreed that ALEBA had a sizeable potential membership, but that it only operated in one sector. With support now from UEP, SNEP and NGL, it is clear that the union is established in several sectors of the Luxembourg economy.

Commentary

Following the decline of the Federation of Private Sector White-Collar Employees (Fédération des Employés Privés, FEP) (LU9812185N), the new ALEBA/UEP-NGL-SNEP federation constitutes a real third pillar of trade unionism in the Luxembourg private sector. If the federation had been founded in the early 1990s, there would have been little doubt about its nationally representative status as it met the criteria normally accepted at that time. Assuming that the new federation has a future, it is possible that the debate over the Minister of Labour and Employment's bill on new rules for trade union representativeness could take a new turn. It could even be that the bill, which is an extremely sensitive issue at a political level, could be abandoned as the new legislative elections scheduled for June 2004 approach. (Marc Feyereisen)