OGBL president Nora Back held the traditional 1 May speech via video stream. The veteran union leader applauded the government's swift and efficient response to the pandemic threat, saying that the measures implemented allowed the country to guarantee a certain level of social security. She nevertheless criticised the government's initial lack of cooperation when it came to including the trade unions in the planning of the exit strategy.
Back explained that the union had been in favour of convening the national tripartite. Luxembourg's "tripartite" social model is based on the institutionalised trialogue between the government, employers and trade unions to find solutions for pressing economic and social matters. The OGBL president lamented that, at the start of the outbreak, the union was told that "now is not the time, we have other worries at the moment."
She deemed later dialogues with individual ministers "important and good" but deplored the government's decision to bring to life an exit task force without consulting the union in advance. "We wanted a tripartite meeting [to discuss the exit plan]. Now the strategy is being discussed in a task force that does not include a single employee representative. And this is unacceptable," she stressed.
OGBL are opposing the idea of immediately abolishing short short-time work schemes ("chômage partiel") once the national state of emergency comes to an end. The partial unemployment schemes, Back explained, are a crucial instrument to support employees and their families. Repeating the mistakes that were made during the 2008/2009 crisis should under no circumstances be allowed. "The OGBL does not accept a relapse into austerity. These political policies, with their fatal economic and social consequences for Europe, have proven that they are wrong," she highlighted.
Nora Back also criticised the decision to increase maximum working time to 12 hours. OGBL expressed fears that increased working times may be abused at the expense of employees. "This was, in our eyes, definitely a wrong decision" that aggravated the situation of employees who "already work under extreme circumstances on a daily basis," the head of OGBL said. Back concluded that this measure has to be revoked as soon as the state of emergency ends.
