Employment Relations and Restructuring Management in the Banking Sector in Luxembourg

This article discusses how restructuring during the crisis has affected employment relations in the banking sector in Luxembourg. The crisis has reinforced the impact of a series of exogenous factors influencing Luxembourg's banking sector and its continental employment relations system. These include the automatic exchange of information, rapidly-evolving European and international regulation and the resulting stronger compliance of banks, the mobilisation of external expertise by social partners, as well as stronger skills and professional requirements. It is argued that although these factors challenge the consensus-based and neo-corporatist employment relations framework, coordinated decentralization with strong government involvement in tripartite bargaining arenas has meant that the functioning of the employment relations system has been maintained. Collective bargaining has contributed to a socially-responsible restructuring in the banking sector through the anticipation and management by consenting to legally-based labour agreements and certified training for dismissed employees, as well as impact management through implementing transition support instruments.