Manuel Cardoso Constructions, which employs 220 people, is said to be close to bankruptcy, according to Luxembourg’s weekly Portuguese newspaper Contacto. A forced sale notice was reportedly seen on the company’s door on Thursday morning, but company officials removed it before workers could fully read it, say reports.
Contacto also reported that a certain number of construction companies could no longer afford to pay their employees. The Construction and Civil Engineering Federation proposed additional aid measures in a recent letter to the government, as the government’s own measures were not sufficient.
The current construction sector crisis does not offer trade unions a strong basis for negotiating new collective agreements. Trade union circles revealed that negotiations are currently extremely difficult as employers are unwilling to budge. Despite this, the OGBL’s Jean-Luc de Matteis took to Twitter to advocate for better working conditions and salaries for the 20,000 people employed within the sector:
De Matteis’s plea following a recent investigation by the Competition Authority into the property market, which flagged a number of concerns, such as the fact developer margins increased by 800% from 2010 to 2020. The report also accused construction companies of deliberately conspiring to keep wages low, in turn slowing down construction and driving up property prices.
The Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL) is pushing for a serious collective agreement with employers in the sector, citing employees’ contributions to enormous profits. Until recently, unions were in a better position to negotiate; but as interest rates jumped up and the sector sank into crisis, there has been a notable lack of manpower.
