Negotiators for French employers and five unions presented a series of proposals on Friday to simplify and extend the sharing of profits to employees, especially in smaller companies, several unions saying they were in favor of it.
We reach an agreement which should be signed by the majority of trade unions, said Hubert Mongon, leader of the employers’ delegation, after a long meeting.
After several months of complicated negotiations, the Medef, the CPME and U2P on the employers’ side and the CGT, CFDT, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC unions presented a text to make the existing schemes more accessible and to continue simplifying the incentive schemes , participation and employee share ownership and strengthen their attractiveness.
In particular, it aims to widely generalize systems such as profit-sharing, participation and value-sharing bonuses for all companies with more than 11 employees.
The agreement comes after a dozen meetings and months of negotiations still described as impossible at the end of January by the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bzieux, in a social context still strained by the pension reform project, on which unions and employers defend diametrically opposed positions.
We have come a long way, also estimated Luc Mathieu (CFDT).
National trade union bodies must now decide whether or not to sign the agreement. At this stage, FO said it was in favor and the CFDT not unfavourable, the other unions remaining reserved (CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT).
Currently, there is participation (compulsory profit redistribution mechanism in companies with more than 50 employees) and profit-sharing (optional bonus linked to results or non-financial performance), which come with tax advantages.
Small enterprises
At the invitation of the government, employers and unions had been working since November.
There are many obstacles, especially among very small, small and medium-sized enterprises (VSEs and SMEs). Despite the relaxations already decided in the Pacte law of 2019 and that of summer 2022 on purchasing power, the complexity and ignorance of the systems, lack of support, complex calculation formula for participation, administrative risks, etc. .
According to the statistical department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares), 88.5% of employees in companies with more than 1,000 people benefited from a value-sharing scheme in 2020, compared to less than 20% in those with less than 50 wages.
The new text provides that companies between 11 and 49 employees and which are profitable and whose net profit represents at least 1% of turnover for three consecutive years set up at least a value sharing mechanism from January 1 2025.
Companies with less than 11 employees have the possibility of sharing the profits with their employees.
In those with more than 50 employees, participation will have to better take into account the results achieved in France and presenting an exceptional character as defined by the employer, enough to respond to the controversies over superprofits through a formula that is nevertheless largely symbolic.
The government for its part defends the track of an employee dividend to compensate for the erosion of purchasing power by inflation, a concept that the signatories of the agreement on Friday undertake not to support.
Binding legislation over the quinquennium was announced in the fall. At the beginning of January, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, promised concrete proposals as well as a convention in February on this theme.