Following a nearly one-hour meeting with trade unions, Minister of Labour Marc Spautz described the discussions around the minimum wage as “highly sensitive.”
Neither Spautz nor Minister of Social Security Martine Deprez wished to comment further, stating only that they would brief the rest of the government on the meeting.
The trade union front, comprising the Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL) and the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (LCGB), called the talks a “failure”. The unions accuse the government of manipulating the calculation of the median income – the reference value for the minimum wage – in a way that would result in an increase of just 0.6%. According to the unions, the government has excluded the 13th month and other bonuses from the calculation, thereby lowering the median.
For the private sector unions, this approach is unacceptable. They are demanding a substantial increase of 11.2%, pointing out that 12% of people are at risk of poverty despite being employed. The unions call for decent living conditions for the 70,000 minimum wage workers in Luxembourg. They note that they have already made a concession by accepting the median as the reference value instead of the average, which would have resulted in an even higher increase.
Following a separate meeting on Tuesday morning, the Luxembourg Employers’ Association (UEL) had expressed its position that the minimum wage should not be increased outside of wage indexations and the legally mandated adjustment every two years.
