2024-04-01 14:12:49
Professional experience is not always synonymous with a better salary in Luxembourg, where there is still a significant percentage of people with more than a dozen years in the profession who continue to earn the minimum wage.
The warning is launched in a recent study by the Chamber of Salaried Employees of Luxembourg (CSL, acronym in French) entitled “Is experience a guarantee for a salary above the minimum wage?”.
Among the country’s active population, 55% of workers earning the minimum social wage (SSM) have less than 10 years of professional experience. However, there are those who have worked for 10 years or more and continue to receive the minimum wage, or close to this amount.
Currently, the unskilled minimum wage (SSM-NQ) is 2,570 euros, while the qualified SSM is 3,085 euros.
According to the study, among workers with experience of five to 10 years, 14.4% continue to receive the legal minimum wage, while 9.9% of those who have worked for more than 10 years also receive the minimum wage. (unqualified and qualified).
19 thousand have worked for more than five years
CSL warns: “50% of workers earning close to the unskilled SSM (SSM-NQ) and 60% of workers with the qualified SSM (SSM-Q) had their first job in Luxembourg more than five years ago and , therefore, they cannot really be considered as inexperienced”.
In concrete numbers, the study states, “there are, therefore, almost 19,000 workers with at least five years of experience in Luxembourg, who continue to be paid” at or close to the legal minimum wage.
Although workers under the age of 25 make up almost half of the active population who receive the minimum wage (SSM), due to their little professional experience, in the more advanced age groups, there is still a percentage of workers who receive the SSM who must be considered, warns CSL.
A third are over 45 years old
“It is important to note that around a third of workers with SSM-NQ are over 45 and therefore not ‘inexperienced’. Consequently, more than 10,000 workers aged 45 or over receive an amount close to the SSM-NQ, 35% of which are over 55”.
“The middle class is increasingly poor in Luxembourg”
Likewise, the study states, “The fact that 15.2% (i.e., more than one person in every seven) of people over 60 are paid close to the SSM value is certainly not a sign that a significant personal experience guarantees a salary above the legal minimum”.
Horesca and cleaning
For Nora Back, president of the Chamber of Salaried Employees of Luxembourg (CSL), it is the professions “without a collective bargaining agreement” that are most affected by this reality in which years of experience are no guarantee of salaries higher than the minimum wage.
“Unfortunately, many workers in low priority sectors, such as Horesca, cleaning or commerce, for example, do not benefit from collective bargaining agreements and, therefore, are in a weak position to negotiate salary increases individually”, he tells Contacto Nora Back .
Pay gap favors women, but men continue to earn more per year
In cleaning, a predominantly female sector, employers are particularly “reticent to increase wages when women have very long professional experience”. And even so, they continue to receive the minimum wage.
Solution? Collective labor agreements
To combat this great “injustice” Nora Back demands that “the legislation on collective labor agreements be changed to make it easier for unions to negotiate these sectoral collective agreements”.
Unions must have “more rights” and employers’ federations “greater obligation to sit at the negotiating table”. The president of the CSL recalls that, as international studies show, “collective work agreements are the best way to achieve wage equality and increase low wages”.
2024-04-01 14:12:49