On Saturday evening, the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (LCGB) celebrated its 100th year of existence with a special celebration at the Philharmonie in Kirchberg.
“The Christian social teachings demand that humans and their interests are at the heart of our thoughts and efforts”, underlined LCGB president Patrick Dury during the 100th anniversary of the union at the Philharmonie on Saturday evening.
800 guests gathered in Kirchberg for the special occasion, including the Grand Ducal couple.
The LCGB is convinced that we are currently facing two major crises, climate change and the war in Ukraine, both of which can only be overcome with a strengthening of the social model during the tripartite meetings.
Dury noted: “We are not running out of work. I don’t have a barometer and cannot judge how social Luxembourg really is. But, it is not social enough.”
For several decades, unions, employers, and the government have formed a social model that focuses on maintaining peace in the country. Although the factions are known to stand in for different values, fights are often resolved through compromises designed to benefit the country.
For the past 100 years, the LCGB has stood for the rights of working people and achieved some historic changes: the 40-hour-work week, paid leave, the minimum wage, continuation of payments to sick workers, pension insurance, child benefits, and long-term care insurance.
Aside from these achievements, Dury decided to highlight one thing in particular: “Security and health at the work place. It did not use to be the case that people had any guarantee of being able to return from work in the evening in the same state in which they arrived in the morning. We know that we had many deaths in the mines, same as in the steel industry.”
While physical health thus used to be at the centre of attention, similar attention should now be put on mental health, emphasised the LCGB president.
Asked about the well-being of workers, Dury explained that it is similar to the success of a business: “Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.” Unions are there to keep things in balance by proposing solutions to businesses that guarantee satisfaction for employees, he further stated.
Aside from work-related issues, the trained engineer currently worries about housing, the distribution of wealth, and digitalisation and its consequences.
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