The LCGB trade union has confirmed that while the Caisse Nationale de Santé (CNS) has announced its intention to privatise in stages in the coming years the agency's cleaning service, it opposes the plans.
Their argument is that the current collective agreement for state employees formally prohibits the use of privatisation for this kind of work, with exceptions in place for circumstances that make it impossible to apply any other solution: "The state will not proceed to any privatisation of existing jobs in the sense of an active employment policy. If, exceptionally, privatisation was essential, the OGB-L and LCGB unions signatories and the staff delegation must be consulted in advance by the head of the competent administration."
The LCGB is claiming that, as a public administration, the CNS is violating the collective agreement. The union is urguing that the exception to the rule cannot be applied here since it is essentially to conduct privatisation in stages to reduce the costs of cleaning services. As a result, the union has demanded the convening of the commission of inquiry provided for in the collective agreement that is authorised to decide in disputes on the interpretation of the text.
