Over half of the 8,498 staff delegates elected last week are members of neither the OGBL nor the LCGB. And not even of Aleba. Early results showed an even higher proportion of unaffiliated winners, given that SMEs--where unions are often less present--were quicker to submit their numbers than big companies. With a few results still to be tallied, the number is currently hovering on 56.5%, where it will likely stay.

“[This result has been] the negative point of the election night,” said OGBL general gecretary .

The battle of unaffiliated candidates

The OGBL refuses to claim that it won the election, despite having beaten the other major union and Aleba. Said the union in a post on X: “It’s absurd to claim that a so-called union of ‘the unaffiliated’ won the social elections, when these unaffiliated delegates are nothing more than a collection of thousands of isolated, unrelated candidates or lists.”

The post was made in reaction to a press release from the Federation of Craftspeople (Fédération des Artisans) in which the OGBL and LCGB are described as “marginal.”

The federation wrote: “The fact is that, in structures with fewer than 100 employees--which are typical of the craft industry--77% of elected staff delegations have no trade union involvement. With 14% and 8% respectively of staff delegations, the OGBL and the LCGB are absolutely marginal phenomena in the real working world.”

The federation went so far as suggest that these results constitute a “political mandate” to adapt the legal framework “in such a way that, within companies, it is possible to decide, in collaboration with the staff delegation, how work and working time can be organised.”

The OGBL made no mistake with its reply: “What the Federation of Craftspeople is aiming for is to be able to negotiate collective agreements with ‘unaffiliated’ delegations--delegations that have no trade union support, no financial resources, no independence from their employer, little or no training in relation to their function as delegates, etc. The Federation of Craftspeople is only seeking to do this by means of a collective agreement. The sole aim of the federation is to worsen the working and pay conditions of hundreds of thousands of employees in Luxembourg.”

This is not entirely rhetoric, either: the European Commission wants 80% of employees within each member state to be covered by a collective agreement. This is a long way off, however, with Statec numbers from last June putting the rate at just 59% of employees in Luxembourg. “Outside the public sector, the highest rate of coverage is in the health and social work sector (87%) and the lowest in horesca [hospitality sector] (13%). Among blue-collar workers, 72% are covered by a collective agreement and among white-collar workers 51%,” the statistics bureau said in its report.

Explanations

For Back, the proliferation of unaffiliated mandate winners reflects a certain reluctance to own your politics. “In small companies,” she explains, “you come across the situation where people may be union members but are reluctant to show their colours in the company.”

She adds: “Then there are whole sectors with no union culture, such as the Big 4, where there are only unaffiliated delegates.”

For LCGB deputy general secretary Christophe Knebeler, the weight of these unaffiliated delegates is unduly heavy for two reasons. The first is that the rate of job creation in Luxembourg is higher than the rate of membership. “Even if the LCGB recruits an average of 1,000 members a year, the rate of growth of the economy and therefore of employment is greater.” The second is the changing makeup of the economy. “The sectors that are growing are those that, historically, did not exist at the time of the creation and growth of the trade union movement.” And in fact, white-collar workers have supplanted blue-collar workers in the Luxembourg labour market.

Knebeler goes on to discuss a difference in trade union culture in Luxembourg compared to its neighbours. “The Belgians are strongly unionised and more easily run for office through a union. The French, meanwhile, are less unionised and more inclined to stand as individuals. As for the Germans, they have a single union culture and are lost in the system.”

Compulsory membership

For Aleba president --whose organisation has made neutrality its calling card in opposition to the OBGL and LCGB--the percentage of unaffiliated staff representatives is “staggering.”

In his view, the crux of the problem is membership: “These people don’t want to join. They want to be elected, but they don’t want to be affiliated or pay a monthly subscription. But that doesn’t stop them coming to us for advice when they need it. And we are happy to do so in a spirit of togetherness.” Given that membership is seen as an obstacle--and pending a reform of trade union regulations in Luxembourg that he considers “inevitable”--Mendolia believes that the solution could lie in a system of compulsory membership, “in which contributions would be deducted from the country’s pay slip and redistributed to the unions according to their weight.” This would be similar to the system used by the Chamber of Employees, he sats. “But I’m just thinking out loud.”

In the meantime, how are the unions dealing with this competition on the ground? By getting the word out. They all point out the advantages of being supported by unions that have resources far greater than those of unaffiliated delegations. “Many unaffiliated elected representatives joined us five years ago,” says Knebeler.

At the OGBL, meanwhile, unaffiliated delegations that choose to join a union after the elections become “OGBL-related.”

This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.