Working hours: employers seek flexibility for small firms as unions hold to collective agreements

Luxembourg's employers' association UEL expressed surprise after Labour Minister Marc Spautz reiterated on Tuesday that changes to working-time rules should only be introduced through collective agreements, RTL Today reports.

The position stems from a pact agreed last July by the government and the social partners, the UEL included, as part of the national action plan to promote collective bargaining. The plan named three possible areas for negotiation: condensing a 40-hour week into four days, allowing more than one break a day and reorganising weekends. The document states that any change to working time must be the subject of a collective agreement.

UEL director Charlotte Junck said many of its members are small businesses for which the proposed reforms are not currently feasible in practice, and called for practical legislation that reflects real workplace conditions. She rejected the view that the UEL's recent call for a "de minimis" exemption — letting small companies introduce flexible hours without a collective agreement — contradicts its earlier commitments: employers, she said, want a solution through social dialogue with the unions, without removing oversight.

OGBL president Nora Back backs the minister: the question was settled in July, she said, and the union will not reopen negotiations. She noted that demands for flexibility come mainly from low-wage sectors such as cleaning and retail, where many staff work part-time and already face schedules set at short notice; many of them, she said, did not choose part-time contracts but had them imposed by their employers.

The minister intends to close the working-time file, but the subject will be discussed again by the National Committee for Employment, RTL Today writes. These are the parties' positions: the three topics in the July plan are possible areas for negotiation, and the "de minimis" exemption is the employers' proposal, not a rule in force.