A €700 bonus, a salary increases of 0.9%, meal vouchers, and one more day off per year: this is what the 70 employees of Coca-Cola Luxembourg won after more than twelve months of lengthy negotiations.

"We are very satisfied with the agreement reached. We've managed to increase by a factor of ten what was negotiated at the outset, and we've achieved our objective of maintaining recurrent pay rises," said Pauline Meiresonne, deputy secretary of the OGBL commerce section, with a smile on Monday.

Together with chairman of the staff delegation Pierre Van Kakerken, she had organised a protest picket outside the Coca-Cola head office in Howald on 12 September to denounce an alleged lack of respect towards workers.

Faced with management blocking of negotiations to renew the collective agreement, the OGBL had subsequently referred the matter to the National Conciliation Office in July.

Meiresonne explained that although management was very "unhappy" about the picket line, the company kept the promise they made through their communications office in Brussels the very same day to take up negotiations again. This resulted in a "victory" for the 70 employees of Coca-Cola Luxembourg on Friday 13 September after a day of negotiations that had begun in November 2022.

€700 bonus and 0.9% salary increase

The agreement in principle to renew the collective labour agreement should result in the signing of the agreement "in the next few days", according to OGBL officials. It will then be valid for two years, from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024, and will improve employees' purchasing power.

For 2023, Coca-Cola employees will receive a one-off bonus of €700, of which €350 will be paid in the form of a bonus and €250 in the form of gift vouchers, the so-called 'cheques-cadeau'. There will also be an increase of "almost 38% in bonuses for on-call duty" and a "12.5% increase in the bonus" for uniform maintenance.

From 2024, all employees will receive a "1.4% increase, including a 0.9% pay rise on 1 January 2024, as well as an increase in meal vouchers to a face value of €12.20". They will also receive one additional day off with guarantees to prevent any absorption in the event of legislative change. From 1 July 2024, an additional gift voucher of €150 will be awarded.

The OGBL described the agreement as a path towards "fairer distribution of the company's wealth, of which employees are the architects!"