Retail does not come to a standstill on a public holiday. With Amazon Prime Day falling on 23 June this year, the online retailer also had to open on a national holiday, as Amazon confirmed to RTL following the original report in Lëtzebuerger Land.
From a union perspective, the move does not sit well, according to Isabel Scott, the responsible union secretary at the Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL).
A public holiday, Scott said, is rightfully reserved for people and should be respected. In emergency contexts, such as the police, the hospital sector and so on, people will of course still work on a public holiday, and that is understandable. Whether Prime Day is reason enough for staff to give up their public holiday is up for debate. But where employees do end up working on such a day, however, labour law entitles them to a top-up on their pay.
That protection applies at least to those who are not part of management. Amazon declined to specify to RTL how many people worked on 23 June, referring only to a "limited number". Scott herself does not know the figure either.
"Unfortunately", the union secretary said, "we do not know what status the staff involved have or how many people ultimately worked, whether the figure runs to a handful or into the hundreds. At this stage, that information is simply not available."
Amazon has said that the people involved volunteered to work. Scott, however, was clear that this does not change the legal picture. Whether someone volunteered or not, she argued, is legally irrelevant.
She therefore advised those who worked at the site and are not part of management to keep a close eye on their pay slips and check that the required uplifts are included. If they are not, employees should first go to HR, and where extra support is needed, they can also turn to the staff delegation to raise the matter.
Amazon, for its part, has said that it will compensate those who worked on the public holiday in line with the law.
