Trade union and employer representatives held separate meetings with Labour Minister Marc Spautz on Tuesday to determine regulations on online platform work. The meetings took place as two separate bipartite encounters, with members of the Luxembourg Employers Association (UEL) meeting Minister Spautz first to share their thoughts on how to implement an EU direction on platform work, or services offered via online platforms.
Ninety minutes later, the UEL concluded that many legal questions remained unanswered, with president Michel Reckinger saying that “legal clarity” would be needed. “When we have this clarity, it will be easy to transpose it to real life and make it clear for everyone what must be done.”
There are no sticking points for the UEL, who mainly focused on the legal interpretation of the European directive.
The Independent Trade Union Confederation of Luxembourg (OGBL) and the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (LCGB) then met with the minister to voice mostly unchanged demands: clear criteria to determine if staff are employees or self-employed. OGBL president Nora Back observed that current regulations have created a status of “false independents”, while LCGB president Patrick Dury underlined that there is no opposition to the “new working method” in principle, just a desire to ensure that platforms cannot take advantage of people.
A month prior, Spautz already met with unions to understand their grievances. Though this follow-up session was meant to be more of a bilateral exchange, the minister declined to provide any public comments after the meeting.
The unions did not rule out a tripartite meeting also including employers’ representatives in the not too distant future. However, Back expressed reservations about a potential timeline, underlining that unions would first need to see that negotiations can be held in good faith – a stance also echoed by Dury.
The UEL’s Reckinger, meanwhile, stressed they had never given up on the tripartite efforts. “We always came to the table and talked to whoever was sitting opposite us.”
Other contentious labour subjects, such as the minimum wage, were not up for discussion on Tuesday.
