The union gathered in hybrid format, with around 500 delegates following the event remotely and only a small assembly meeting in person in Dommeldange.

“We cannot condone what some people did in the city on Saturday,” said CGFP president Romain Wolff during his opening speech. But the union also criticised the government, saying some of the current problems have arisen over indecisive measures and a lack of dialogue.

The government from November allowed companies and public administrations to implement the CovidCheck system in the workplace, leaving it up to employers to set the rules. This also included ministries and divisions in the public sector.

“The government should have followed a clear line and should not have simply shifted its responsibility onto the heads of administration. They got into an impossible situation because they always had part of the workforce against them,” said secretary general Steve Heiliger.

The CGDP had supported to four civil servants who filed complaints against being denied access to their office. A court in an accelerated procedure had but proceedings are ongoing.

From 15 January, CovidCheck will become mandatory at work with who aren’t vaccinated or recovered from a coronavirus infection.

“The new, sensible solutions with, among other things, the guarantee that no one will lose their job because of CovidCheck could have been found in a proper social dialogue from the beginning and then the legal complaints would not have been needed,” said Heiliger.

But he also refused for the union to be labelled anti-vaxx, saying it had demanded early access to vaccination for a range of frontline workers in the civil service, such as teachers.

The union also demanded clearer rules on remote working from the government. Prime minister Xaiver Bettel (DP) last week said civil servants will be allowed to work from home four days a week where possible. However, it will be up to line managers to decide whether their departments get to remote work.

Once again, this could lead to discrepancies and frustrations between departments, the union warned, saying it had submitted a paper for a more detailed policy to the government to regulate working conditions and the right to disconnect.

The government, employer and employee groups are set to meet for a so-called tripartite meeting next week. The CGFP said it is high time for such a gathering. It is part of a catalogue of crisis tools and was founded during the 1970s steel crisis. The last tripartite meeting took place in July last year.

But the meeting shouldn’t only focus on the pandemic, the CGFP said, citing other crises such as housing, climate change and energy prices.