ABBL

• Area of Application

This agreement governs relations and general working conditions between the members of the Luxembourg Bankers' Association and their employees working on a permanent basis in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with the exception of

a) employees belonging to the higher categories referred to in Art. L. 162-8 of the Labour Code. For the purposes of this heading, the term “Senior Executives” denotes employees whose salary is significantly higher than that of the employees covered by the collective agreement or based on a different scale, having regard to the time needed to perform the duties if this salary is the counterpart consideration for the exercise of a genuine and effective management authority or if the nature of the tasks comprises a clearly defined authority, substantial independence for the purpose of the organisation of work and considerable freedom to determine working hours and, in particular, the absence of constraints governing working hours.

b) Bank apprentices whose status is governed by Art. L. 111-1 et seq of the Labour Code.

• Duration - Notice of termination

This agreement is concluded for a term of three years, i.e. for the period running from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2013.

The agreement may be terminated by either party by the means of a registered letter sent at the latest one month and at the earliest three months before its expiry.

Termination pursuant to the foregoing paragraph is regarded as a request for negotiations to be opened within the meaning of Art. L. 162-2. The party who gives notice to terminate the agreement must attach to its letter of termination the draft text of an agreement on the points which are to be reviewed.

The agreement which has been terminated shall cease to be effective from the date of entry into force of a new agreement or from the time at which the failure of the negotiations is established by a report that conciliation was impossible, pursuant to the provisions of Art. L. 164-5.

• Recruitment

The contract of employment between the employer and the employee, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, must be set out in writing.

The contract of employment must be drawn up in duplicate with the first copy for the employer and the second for the employee. In addition to the provisions of Art. L. 121-4 (2) of the Labour Code, it must specify:

a) - for persons joining the service of a bank for the first time:  their duty group;

 - for persons moving to a different employer in the banking sector:

their duty group and basic salary as defined by article 23. resulting from the application of this agreement which will be retained by the employee if his or her duties remain identical;

b) such provisions as may have been agreed between the parties by way of derogation or addition.


On joining the establishment, every person who is recruited shall:

- receive a copy of the currently valid collective agreement (either in electronic form or, failing this, as a hardcopy);

- be advised of his or her rights and duties;

- shall be informed of the working procedures of the staff delegation in principle by the latter.

The chairman of the staff representation shall receive a list of the persons who have been recruited within seven days, indicating the departments to which they have been assigned and their type of contract (temporary contract, indefinite contract, interim work, internships with the exception of school-linked internships, part-time work).

Every employee recruited by a bank must take a medical examination on recruitment, pursuant to the provisions of the Art. L. 326-1 of the Labour Code. The health service in the financial sector is the Association for Occupational Health in the Financial Sector (ASTF).

The weekly working hours of a full-time employee shall be 40, spread in principle over 5 working days.

The 40 weekly working hours may, however, be spread over 4 or 6 days. Hours worked on Saturdays are governed by Article 8.

The performance of any overtime work shall be conditional on the authorizations and procedures laid down in the internal and the statutory provisions.

a) within the framework of fixed working time

Without prejudice to the provisions of Art. L. 211-18 et seq of the Labour Code, working hours in excess of fixed working time, i.e. any work performed outside the daily and weekly limits of the normal duration of work of 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week, shall, where appropriate, be treated as overtime, provided that they have been put in at the request of the employer or of his representative and in compliance with the internal rules of the banks.

b) within the framework of flexible working time

Excluding hours due in case of force majeure or unforeseeable events and save of a number of credit hours to be carried forward to the next half-yearly reference period in accordance with the regulation of the sliding timetable within each company, surplus working hours (credits) in excess of the average weekly period of 40 hours at the end of the half-yearly reference period shall be regarded as overtime in so far as reasons of service allowed no possibility of compensation and provided that they have been put in at the request of the employer or of his representative and in compliance with the internal rules of the banks.

The maximum working time being limited to 10 hours per day and 48 hours per week, according to Art. L. 211-12 of the Labour Code and subject to the currently valid statutory provisions.
 

• Remuneration of overtime work

a) Definition of the normal hourly salary

The normal hourly salary is obtained by dividing the basic monthly salary as defined in article 23. of the present agreement, augmented by the household allowance respectively the seniority allowance and one-twelfth of the 13th month, by the flat-rate figure of 173.

b) Salary increase in case of overtime work

An increase of 50% shall be applied to the normal hourly salary in case of cash payment of overtime work.

c) Overtime – statutory and/or agreed payments

Payment for overtime shall be made as follows:

• either by cash payment at the rate of 150%
• by a compensation of paid free time amounting to one hour and a half per one hour overtime; these hours may be converted into rest days to be taken within the year following the statement
• or by a combination of the two above solutions
• or, in the event of a specific imputation defined below, by application of a rate of compensatory time-off amounting to 175%

This specific imputation is reserved for carefully designated particular instances for which both the principle and the implementing procedures may be adopted by the company after informing and consulting the staff delegation. These cases are:

• early retirement of employees at age 50
• enrolment for retraining

In case of daily work superior to 10 hours or weekly work superior to 48 hours, within the limits stipulated in Art. L. 211-5 et seq of the Labour Code (in case of force majeure or unpredictable events), overtime hours which are paid in cash shall be settled together with the salary for the month following that in which the overtime hours were worked.

In case of overtime at the end of the half-yearly reference period hours overtime hours which are paid in cash shall be settled together with the salary of the month following the statement drawn up at the end of the reference period.

• Qualification of additional hours

Working hours put in at the request of the employer beyond the 45th hour of work in a particular week shall be qualified as additional hours and invested in a specific scheme. These are therefore hours between the 46th and 48th hour inclusive within a weekly period.

Working hours identified in this way nevertheless continue to be taken into account for the calculation of the average working duration in the half-yearly reference period. They are therefore also liable to be compensated during the half-yearly reference period and/or to be taken into account in the statement drawn up at the end of the half-yearly reference period.

• Working on Sundays

All work on Sundays must be reported to the Labour and Mines Inspectorate (Inspection du Travail et des Mines) pursuant to Art. L. 231-2 of the Labour Code.

In respect of each hour worked on a Sunday, the employee shall be entitled to his normal salary plus 70%.

Hours worked on Sundays may be compensated by time off according to Art. L. 231-7 of the Labour Code

If hours worked on a Sunday are offset by corresponding paid rest during the week, the supplement of 70% alone is payable.

Night work - Saturday work - Cumulative payment for overtime work, work on Sundays and public holidays  and night work ->  chapter V till VII, Collective bargaining agreement 2011-2013.

• Annual leave

All employees shall be entitled to paid recreational leave in conformity with the provisions of the Labour Code (Art. L. 233-1 – Art. L. 233-20 and Art. L. 251-1 – Art. L. 254-1).

Duration of the annual leave:

- 25 days for employees aged less than 50;
- 27 days for employees aged between 50 and 54 (application: year in which birthday occurs);
- 28 days for employees aged 55 or more (application: year in which birthday occurs).

Employees who can justify that their professional career dates back for 25 years will benefit from an extra day of leave (26 days) on presentation of supporting documents.

This day’s leave cannot be accumulated with the days of age-related leave.

Terms: see Art.12 of the collective bargaining agreement

• Rest days

Employees are entitled to 8.5 rest days per year.

Procedure for application:

- For reasons of organization of work in the bank, a rest day may be fixed collectively for the entire sector after consulting the Joint Committee established in Article 30 of this agreement.

In that case, it shall be so fixed at the time when the calendar of public holidays referred to in the last paragraph of Article 8 IV.A. a) is drawn up. Employees who are in service on the date so fixed shall benefit from this day of collective rest.

If, as a result of needs of the service, some employees are unable to benefit from this free day on the stipulated date, they shall be entitled to a compensatory rest day.

- The rest day or days which are taken individually by employees shall be so taken in periods of slack activity.

- The rest days shall be imputed against any statutory reduction in the duration of work.

- In other respects, the procedures for rest days shall be the same as those stipulated for days of leave.

-  One or more rest days may be fixed collectively for the particular bank or for parts of it, after consulting the Staff Representation. The leave days fixed collectively by the bank must be notified to the employees at the latest during the first quarter of the year.
 

• Special leave

Special leave must be taken on the occasion of the event which gives entitlement thereto and at the latest within one week of its occurrence. The employee shall benefit from the full special leave, regardless of the number of months of the year for which he has worked.

The basic salary is the monthly salary resulting from the application of the scales set out in the collective agreement and the salary increases stated therein.

The basic salary does not include the seniority allowance, the conjunctural allowance and the training allowance.

The basic salary as defined above constitutes the basis of calculation for the 13th month and overtime hours.

Reference salary bill

The calculation of the reference salary bill is made on the basis of the salary of the employees in the month of December of the year in question for employees who are still in service on 1 January of the following year.

The reference salary bill is the sum of all the basic salary of employees covered by the collective agreement to which shall be added one 13th of the non-recurring merit allowances which may have been paid in the previous year to employees who have reached or passed threshold 2.

The component of the basic monthly salary in excess of threshold 2 is excluded from the salary bill.

Merit

Merit is defined as a set of technical, behavioural and social skills which enable the employee to perform work whose quantity and quality increase with experience in the post. Merit cannot be summarised as a measure of pure performance over a given period of employment.

The salary evolves in the light of the employee’s merit. Therefore, basic salary is determined and evolves as appropriate within the framework of the company’s salary policy according to the evolution of the employee’s qualifications, the effort made by him at work, the outcomes achieved and the evolution of his responsibilities. The aim is therefore to acknowledge skills and competences acquired through experience and also through in-service academic and professional training as well as the ability to make sound use of the knowledge built up in this way.

The merit of each staff member is assessed each year by a system of assessment specific to each company. The recurring nature of this salary component means that it relates to stable assessment criteria linked to the duties performed, more specifically the level of expertise achieved. The assessment system accordingly takes account of the evolution of the following skills:

Technical skills

• Level of technical skills and development of these skills;
• Communication (= information management), written and oral communication;
• Judgment (assessment of situations and the ability to react and take decisions).

Social and behavioural skills

• Quality of internal relations (team work/behaviour in relation to colleagues and the hierarchical superior);
• Quality of external professional relations (clients/suppliers);
• Availability – reliability;
• Sense of responsibilities;
• Personal development and involvement;
• Ability to deal with critical situations;
• Flexibility.

Supervisory tasks (where appropriate)

• Ability to supervise and motivate a team;
• Leadership;
• Organising and planning ability.

In the event of disagreement with the assessment, the employee may address himself to an internal appeal body within the establishment. The membership of this appeal body is as follows:

• The person making the assessment, more specifically the direct hierarchical superior;
• The person responsible for the management of human resources;
• The person who has been assessed, assisted if he so wishes by a representative of the staff delegation or failing that by another member of the company.

Final responsibility for the evaluation will rest with the employer. If the disagreement persists the employee may ask for his remarks to be added to his file and taken into account when the assessment for the next year is made.

Transposition of merit into the remuneration

The remuneration evolves on the basis of an overall envelope reserved for salary increases. The overall envelope is calculated with regard to the reference salary bill, as defined in Art. 23. A., Reference salary bill.

2 separate envelopes will be calculated:

• One for groups I and II in order to pay the seniority steps and the merit-based increases to be distributed to at least 66% of the personnel falling within these classification groups. The envelope breaks down as follows:

- One part is reserved for the seniority steps from which employees whose basic monthly salary has not yet reached threshold 1 benefit.

- The balance is to be reserved for increases based on merit enabling threshold 1 to be achieved at a faster pace. The amounts allocated for this purpose will be distributed to at least 66% of the personnel covered by the classification system.

• One for groups III to VI in order to pay the merit-based increases to be distributed to at least 66% of the personnel falling within these classification groups.

Between threshold 1 and threshold 2, employees will be able to benefit solely from merit-based increases.

In the case of employees who have reached or passed threshold 2, merit will be recognised in the form of a single non-recurring allowance paid in the month of January.

Garantee linked to seniority applicable to groups III and VI

Each employee concerned benefits from a guarantee of an increase of his basic salary calculated at index 100, of 15 EUR (index 100) over a period of three years. All increases falling within the basic salary, apart from linear increases, will be considered for the calculation of the guarantee.

This guarantee shall be assessed each year on 1 January, retroactively for a period of three years, for as long as the basic salary at the previous 31 December is below threshold 1. For all employees, including those who are approaching threshold 1, the guarantee of 15 EUR (index 100) will always be applied in an indivisible manner.

The guarantee described above is deemed to make retroactive allowance for the rights acquired in previous years.

Conjunctural bonus

With the salary for the month of June 2011, payment of a bonus based on the following scale:

This bonus is payable to employees in post on 15 June 2011 and whose employment contracts are not subject to a notice of termination on that date.

Employees working on a part-time basis shall benefit from the bonus on a pro rata basis to their working hours during the period from 1 June 2010 to 31 May 2011.

Employees on maternity leave on 15 June 2011 shall benefit from that bonus corresponding to their post group.

Employees on parental leave shall benefit from the bonus corresponding to their category on a pro rata basis to the time on which their contract has produced its effects compared to the period for which the contract has been suspended during a reference period from 1 June 2010 to 31 May 2011.

For the years 2012 and 2013, see Article 23 of the collective bargaining agreement 2011-2013.