Luxembourg: banking/insurance sector ALEBA union loses its representativeness

Since 2005, and until 05 March 2021, ALEBA had been the banking and insurance sector’s representative trade union. However during the most recent 2019 round of social elections that are held every five years, the union lost its majority position in only securing 49.22% of the votes. In Luxembourg, any trade union with only a single professional base must secure more than 50% of the votes in order to be classed as representative. At the request of ALEBA’s rival unions, the OGBL and LCGB, and despite his initial refusal, the Minister of Labor and Employment Dan Kersch, did withdraw ALEBA’s ‘representativeness’ and with it the right to solely conclude collective agreements on behalf of workers in the sector and even to the benefit of certain trade union rights in the relevant companies. The OGBL and LCGB national central trade union centers, which weigh 31.58% and 19.20% respectively in the banking and insurance sector will thus conduct the next biennial negotiations alone. “Of course, as it has already done in the past, ALEBA is already taking steps at national and international level to have tis legitimate representativeness recognized and restored,” the sector union stated in a statement. Claiming 10,000 members and 700 delegates in companies from the banking/insurance sector that weighs more than a quarter of the Duchy’s GDP (Luxembourg is the European leader in asset management), ALEBA intends “to continue its trade union work in companies.” The union also continues to refuse joining either of the two major national unions, arguing instead that “its independence was the best guarantee of quality union work for employees in the sector.” Both national central trade union centers challenged the representativeness of its past social elections on the grounds that ALEBA had “decided to go it alone,” in announcing that it had reached an agreement in principle with the ABBL and the ACA employers’ organizations on collective agreements in banking and insurance.