National Reports

LUXEMBOURG

8 September 2000
Government of Luxembourg
Law of 14 August 2000 concerning electronic commerce

This Law is a transposition of two Directives: Directive 1999/93 relating to electronic signatures, and Directive 2000/31 governing certain legal aspects of the provision of services by information companies.
The scope of the Law is very broad, covering services provided by information companies comprising online contracts, advertising, search engines and all innovative activities.
The Law does not govern employment contracts, which are covered by labour legislation, although it does cover teleworking, which also falls within the scope of Directive 2000/31 governing e-commerce.
The Law provides a legal framework for commercial communications, online contracts and the liability of intermediaries.
Service providers have an obligation of transparency when sending commercial communications, i.e. advertising and direct marketing. A commercial communication must be readily identifiable as such by the recipient.
With regard to unsolicited commercial communications, the Luxembourg legislator has adopted a flexible approach designed to encourage the development of SMEs by way of less costly advertising: this is the "opt-out", meaning that an addressee may choose to be registered on an opt-out list if they do not wish to receive unsolicited commercial communications.
The Law imposes regulations governing online contracts. Firstly, service providers will be under an obligation to provide "technical" information to the recipient, i.e. the user, for example, how to correct inputting errors when buying over the Internet, etc.
The Law also defines the moment of finalisation of a contract : the contract is concluded when the service provider has acknowledged receipt of the customer's acceptance. Such acknowledgement must be immediate and in accessible form, i.e. it should not be necessary to wait until the customer has opened and read his/her e-mail.
The Law contains a number of consumer-protection measures relating to contracts; in particular, it imposes an obligation on the service provider to provide pre-contractual information, such as price and period of validity of an offer, and the consumer's right to cancel.
The Law also guarantees personal data protection, with particular reference to electronic signatures.
Finally, the Law contains provisions governing the limited liability of intermediaries, i.e. service providers offering transport, caching and/or hosting over the Internet.
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10 May 2000
I-Mediair
Telework at 'Kind & Gezin'

Kind & Gezin (child & family) is the public institution of the Flemish Region for the promotion of children welfare, with about 800 employees: visiting nurses, nursery nurses, employees of medical centres, couriers and drivers, administrative staff, ICT professionals, inspectors and coordinators of a network of independent day nurses at home.
At the end of 1999, the management and the trade-unions of the institutions have negotiated a new plan of human resource management, including a pilot phase of “alternate teleworking” (partly at home) for ICT professionals, couriers, inspectors and coordinators. The purpose was to reduce their workload and to improve the efficiency of travelling and working time. Mid-may 2000, 50 persons were involved in this pilot phase. Kind & Gezin has installed a new groupware system, accessible from home, for distance planning of meetings and visits.
An evaluation of the pilot phase is being carried out now, by both management and trade-unions. If the results of the evaluation are positive, the principle of “alternate teleworking” will be enlarged to new categories of personnel.
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May 2000
ILRES
ILRES survey about telework in Luxembourg

ILRES, the Luxemburgish surveys institute, conducted a survey about telework. 500 persons were questioned about this subject.
The result was that 76% of the questioned persons know what telework is. 40% of them would be disposed to telework in future. 56% white collars would be ready to telework. 63% of the potential teleworkers would only realise a part of their work with PC and modem, 16% would prefer to do the whole work from home.
84% of those who are disposed to telework in future consider telework as a positive development in their professions.
The advantages of telework that were listed are: self-organisation, more freedom (43%); it is good for the family (26%); win of time, no need to do drive at work (19%); work conditions (5%); less costs for the business (2%).
The persons who had a negative approach to teleworking justified this feeling above all because of the threat of isolation (67%) that could be involved. Teleworking was considered as negative by 54%. 84% would miss the human contact.
[download the survey]
[download the presentation]

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1 June 2000
Fr. Lavabre-Bertrand
published in weekly newspaper: 'Le Jeudi' Teleworking in Luxembourg

Telework changes communication. The development of new technologies in computers and in communication means that the impact of teleworking grows above all in European countries such as Netherlands or Denmark where teleworking is very common. A report published by the European Commission shows the evolution of teleworking (1.5 million teleworkers in 1997/ 9 millions in 1999). But what is the meaning of teleworking?
It has not to be mixed up with teleactivity. Teleworking is work that can be executed entirely or in part at home or in satellites offices or in telecenters. Teleactivity is a teleservice where there is no relation between the employer and the employee. The most common form of telework is mobile telework, where the employer can do, with the help of technical items, his work at different places. Telework brings flexibility to the individual, to the team and to the society.
It is evident that these new forms will change the organisation of work. But telework also has disadvantages which concern the individual. Telework involves social isolation, disconnection with the society, demotivation. The disadvantages for the team would be a lack of co-ordination and collaboration, bad communication, unequal work quality and chaotic organisation. The greatest disadvantages for the society are the difficulty to control the work.
Teleworking will change the way to appreciate work and the responsibility of the employees. On the other side there will be a real danger for the health of the employees because the stress risks to increase.
Alain Stern, reporter and co-organiser of the congress “Emplois nouveaux dans la société de l’information”, held on 20-21 March in Luxemburg, underlines the importance of providing concise European legislation to protect the new working forms.
New communication forms - for example, intranets - have been applied by enterprises in order to preserve good organisation. Regular meetings with the whole staff would also help to maintain contact.
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20 March 2000
ALTA (Luxemburgish teleactivities association)
"New jobs in the information society" congress

The ALTA congress 2000, entitled "New Jobs in the Information Society" brought together international experts in the field of new technologies to discuss about the evolution of the present situation in job creation which involves inevitable trends and advances in Information and Communication activities.

The debate of the Congress focused on problems in relation to employment conditions, and also on educational and training requirements, as well as on the social aspects involved.

The congress was under the patronage of Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister and the honorary Presidency of Mr. François Biltgen, Minister of Labour and Employment and was supported by the European Commission.

5 March 2000
Luxemburger Wort
(Luxemburgish newspaper)
Report of meeting about teleworking in Luxemburg

The main speakers of this meeting were the chairman of the Employees’ Chamber, Jos Kratochwil, and Armand Haas, director of the fiduciary “Compagnie Fiduciaire”.

They focused on the problems teleworking involves especially for the legal point of view (payment of salary following the quantity of work not following the working hours etc.). Teleworking needs a legal framework and there still are a lot of questions which remain without an answer as for example for the worker’s insurance or if a new law should be created to resolve problems teleworking involves or should the existing law about working be adopted for teleworking.

The two speaker also underlined the difference between teleworking at home and teleworking in special centers together with several teleworkers. They also mentioned that teleworking has not developed as it was initially expected as only 4% of the Europeans are teleworkers. In the USA they are already 12.5%.

The conclusion of the meeting was that there is a legal lack concerning teleworking.

21 April 2000
Mr François Biltgen, Luxemburgish Labour Minister
Parliamentary question addressed by a deputy to the Luxemburgish Labour Minister

The deputy Marc Zanussi addressed a letter to the Chamber of deputies’ president to get an answer on following parliamentary questions about teleworking:

Do the expectations requested from a teleworker and his delocalisation lead him to a self-employed entrepreneur who is offering his services? In that case, is the employment law not getting inapplicable?

What about the teleworker’s responsibility and accident insurance, the protection of the data files, the possibility to go back to his company as a normal worker? Is there not a legal lack?

Is it not useful to adapt the existing law to the pecificities of teleworking or to create an appropriate law for this particular kind of working?

The Minister’s answers can be summarized by the following:

As no juridical definition of teleworking seems to exist for the moment in Luxembourg, the Luxembourgish Government is waiting for a Community initiative before determining a general framework for telework. The Minister also enhanced that a special study would be made to find out the difficulties and problems to be considered for the development of a teleworkers’ law. For the moment, the general law is applied in Luxembourg as well for a “normal” worker in a concern as for a teleworker no specific law existing for teleworking. Every change of a contract of employment (also for the working place) has to be communicated by the employer to the worker. So if an employer decides that a worker has to do teleworking in future, he has to guarantee to the teleworker the same rights as if he were cancelling his contract. The employer has to explain the reasons for this change.

The Minister explained that as there is no specific law for teleworking, it is still possible to circumvent the existing law by transforming a teleworker into an independent entrepreneur. In this case, only the Labour court can decide if the relation of en employment contract can be redefined.

January 2000
Luxembourg conference: New jobs in the Information Society, 20-21 March, 2000

Documents:
[download] Press release
[download] Presentation
[download] Programme

October 1999
Gérard Valenduc and Patricia Vendramin
Published by FTU in its newsletter 'La Lettre EMERIT' (22)
Employment trends and professional profiles in call centres –a study carried out by CEFORA/CPNAE

An article about the CEFORA Report by Luc Van Waes, published in June 1999, and available in print only.

CEFORA is the study and training centre created by the Auxiliary National Joint Commission of Employees (CPNAE), which represents employers and trade unions of all white collar workers who are not depending on another National Joint Commission. CPNAE covers most of the workers employed in the new industries and services of the information society. The board of CEFORA consists of representatives of employers organisations and trade unions.

The CEFORA report deals with the following topics: The prospects for further technological developments in call centres: coupling with the Internet, voice recognition, conversation sampling, etc. Insourcing and outsourcing: 85% of call centres are internal call centres, 15% are (totally or partially) outsourced call centres; internal call centres are small units with few flexible working conditions, while external call centres are bigger business units, with highly flexible working conditions (part-time and temporary work, 24-hours operation, agency work, etc.) Employment prospects: about 14000 employees in call centres in Belgium in 1998, 22000 expected in 2001. More than 2000 new jobs/year (taking turn-ver into account). Employees are young (76% less than 35 years old) and multilingual. Localisation: high centralisation in and around Brussels (50% of call centres) and in Flanders (Antwerp, Ghent).

Professional profiles: CEFORA has worked out a very detailed inventory of qualifications and skills required from call centre operators and call centre supervisors. The report gives recommendations for vocational training in three areas: communication skills, linguistic skills and specialised technical knowledge (in the case of help-desk call centres).
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1998
Gérard Valenduc and Patricia Vendramin
The Revival of Telework: Preparatory document for the AFETT seminar 'Teleworking and Organisation of Work'

Document:
[download]