This created an “unacceptable” and “precarious” situation for young people who want to gain work experience. As the number of these voluntary traineeships rise, the trade union called on employment minister Nicolas Schmit in a meeting on 6 February to change this.

The OGBL has demanded legislation to protect these trainees, by introducing clear and precise qualitative criteria to be fulfilled in a traineeship and to introduce a guarantee that the traineeship serves an educational purpose for young people.

Furthermore, trainee periods should be covered by some sort of social protection, such as including the period in pension calculations, being covered by health insurance and fixing an adequate remuneration for the trainees. This would prevent abuse of trainees as low-cost workers.

The new law should also set a maximum number of trainees for a company, as well as define the maximum length of a trainee period to prevent abuse, the trade union wrote on Tuesday 13 February.