The OGBL demands a strengthening of the public status of POST Luxembourg

Article 24 of the framework law of POST Luxembourg establishes the staff regime of Post Luxembourg. It perpetuates the application of the current and future provisions of the general statute, of the salary, allowance and pension schemes, of the legislation relating to civil servants and public employees and the application of the collective agreement for public workers to the governed by public law staff of POST Luxembourg.

At the same time, this article 24 introduced the possibility for POST Luxembourg to hire staff under private law.

The current Minister in charge of POST Luxembourg, the Minister of Economy, quoted in the order of the administrative court of 24 October 2022, states that article 24 also aims at inserting the private regime in the POST law in order to put the public and private law regimes on an equal footing, without the coexistence of these two different statuses being intended to define quotas, or even to oblige POST Luxembourg to recruit 50% of its staff under public law and 50% under private law.

The Minister underlined that the will of the legislator was clearly:

1. to anchor the private law status in the POST law as an alternative to the public status and
2. to put an end to any kind of possible discrimination between employees with different statuses.

The OGBL notes that the private status has indeed been anchored within POST and that it was accompanied by the introduction of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in 2009. However, despite the efforts of the OGBL to achieve equal treatment between the two statuses, it must be noted that the said CBA has only increased the injustices between the statuses instead of putting an end to any kind of discrimination, as desired by the legislator (point 2).

The OGBL also notes that during the pandemic, the government and the management of POST Luxembourg have not ceased to claim that the company is essential for the survival of the country. For OGBL, this fact demonstrates once again the public utility mission of POST Luxembourg.

The OGBL demands a reinforcement of the public status of POST Luxembourg:

• by a policy of recruitment of public employees (civil servants, public employees or public workers);
• by the negotiation of provisions aiming at the transition to the public status of the current “private” staff;
• by real negotiations on the statuses within POST, including management, government and ALL the unions represented within POST Luxembourg.

The OGBL will not stop defending the public character of POST Luxembourg.

Press release by the Public Service Syndicate OGBL/Landesverband
9 January 2023