For Patrick Dury, national president of the LCGB and co-president of the union, the arrival of Marc Spautzis good news. “Discussions with Georges Mischo had become complicated and difficult. We know Marc Spautz, we know who he is and that he is committed to social dialogue and defending trade union rights. We are ready to work constructively with him and we look forward to meeting him. However, asks the trade unionist, “will changing the Minister of Labour change the government’s social policy? He leaves this question open. “We’ll have to get our bearings”, he says. For the moment, there is no question of returning to the tripartite negotiations abandoned by the unions on September 12.

For the general secretary of the OGBL and co-president of Union syndicale Nora Back, “Georges Mischo’s departure is not surprising and illustrates the difficulties we had in talking to him”. The arrival of Marc Spautz is seen as good news. But the head of the OGBL puts things into perspective: “Just because we like someone doesn’t mean they won’t be judged on their actions. “His positions are closer to those of the unions than those of the government, but our mistrust was not linked to Gorges Mischo alone. It’s the social policy of the government as a whole that poses a problem.” She is now waiting for positive signals from the new minister before resuming the tripartite dialogue.

Hot issues

New minister, new policy or at least a new approach? This return to social dialogue will be put to the test in a number of areas.

The first of these is Bill 8456 on Sunday working. This bill is currently in committee. According to the agenda, its rapporteur is due to present a draft report on 10 December. The adoption of a draft report is the final stage before the formal vote in plenary. The next plenary sessions are scheduled for the week of 15 December. They are due to vote on the budget for 2026 and the first part of the pension reform. Given the circumstances, the Commission may well reschedule this session and thus give Marc Spautz time to get his bearings.

Another equally controversial issue: Bill 8472 regulating opening hours in the trade and craft sector is still being examined by the Economy Committee and the Labour Committee. According to the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies, these two committees are due to meet on 11 December to continue their work - and appoint a rapporteur. Although the bill was tabled by the Minister for the Economy Lex Delles, the Ministry of Labour was also involved. In fact, the two ministers had jointly presented on 1^er October last the amendments tabled by the government following negotiations with the social partners and the opinions of the Conseil d’État, proof if any were needed that these two issues are highly intertwined.

Together, they are in fact the submerged face of a larger problem: the regulation of working time. At one point on the agenda of the social negotiations begun in July, the social partners agreed to refer the subject to the Standing Committee on Labour and Employment (CTPE). But that was before the decision by the OGBL-LCGB union to boycott all future tripartite meetings and thus withdraw from the Standing Committee on Labour and Employment (CPTE) - a decision with which the LSAP had expressed solidarity - forcing the government to opt for a strategy of bilateral discussions with management and unions. A round of bilateral talks began on 28 October confided Georges Mischo to Paperjam. These discussions included Lex Delles. Without giving a deadline, Georges Mischo was hoping for an agreement by March, or even early April, with a view to reform before the end of the current legislature. Will Marc Spautz meet this deadline? Will it even be his priority?

Relaunching the dialogue

Facing a discussion between management and unions that is likely to be as difficult as the one on the subject of pensions, Will Marc Spautz be able to reopen the tripartite dialogue? This will be his major political challenge. Believing that it had been ridiculed at the third round of social negotiations on 3 September, the union took a good week to digest the blow before going back on the attack, now favouring a strategy of power relations. The arrival of a CSV minister representing the party’s social wing could change things. Marc Spautz was invited to speak at the OGBL Congress in March. And he had taken the opportunity to champion trade union rights and social dialogue, criticising the substance and form of the modernisation of labour law.

The return of the social minimum wage

Another issue, which was once on the agenda of this summer’s round tables, will also be back on the agenda: the question of the minimum social wage. Introduced to transpose Directive 2022/2041 of 19 October on an adequate minimum wage in Europe, Bill 8437 on setting the social minimum wage (SSM), tabled on 30 August 2024, has been frozen since May 2025. The government had chosen to await the outcome of an appeal lodged with the Court of Justice of the European Union by Denmark and Sweden challenging the legality of this directive.

Even before its suspension, the project led by Georges Mischo had been criticised by the Chamber of Employees, which, in an opinion issued on 4 November 2024, spoke of a “deplorable project” and a “missed opportunity” on the part of the government to “considerably improve the lot of employees in Luxembourg”. The CSL demanded a structural increase in the SSM. The government refused, arguing that the existing rules should not be changed. “The transposition of the directive will have as a consequence neither an adaptation of the current level of the Luxembourg social minimum wage nor, moreover, a questioning of the mechanism for its periodic adaptation”, the minister said.

The Council of State had come to the unions’ rescue by formally opposing the draft, criticising the lack of a calculation method for determining the adequacy of these wages.

Since the CJEU issued its ruling on 11 November last, the debate can be relaunched. The services of the Ministry of Labour are in the process of analysing the ruling in depth, the Ministry said on 11 November. He was not alone, the calculators were quickly drawn, dreaming of the possibility of a social wage of 3,375 euros monthly.