The Medef changed his mind a few centimeters from the finish line. While employers ‘and employees’ organizations were on the verge of publishing a joint text on unemployment insurance, the movement chaired by Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux indicated, Monday, March 29, that he preferred “Procrastinate”. His decision aroused astonishment among several union and employer officials. This episode illustrates the difficulty of the social partners to speak with one voice when it comes to defending parity.
The idea of collective expression had emerged a few weeks ago among representatives of employee groups and employers’ movements that administer Unédic, the association responsible for managing the compensation scheme for workers. unemployed. The aim was to respond to two parliamentary initiatives, conducted separately but with similar concerns. One is to be credited to the deputy (LRM, Charente) Thomas Mesnier, general rapporteur of the social affairs committee at the National Assembly; the other comes from several senators, including Catherine Deroche (LR, Maine-et-Loire) and Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe (Centrist Union, Pas-de-Calais), who are respectively president and general rapporteur of the social affairs committee at Luxembourg Palace.
The fear of being relegated
In both cases, the elected officials in question have drawn up – or are in the process of preparing – a proposal for an organic law, one of the ambitions of which is to extend the scope of social security financing laws (LFSS) to the unemployment insurance: thus, the system which provides replacement income to unemployed persons could be better controlled by Parliament and the State.
These bills converge with the recommendations made by the Court of Auditors or, more recently, by the Arthuis commission on the future of public finances. They come at a time when the government will soon open a consultation with the unions and employers on the governance of Unédic.
All this turmoil worries the social partners. Their fear is of being relegated, in the long term, to a decorative function within the regime. “We are surrounded”, summarizes a trade unionist. The feeling of being in the crosshairs turns out to be all the more acute since the power in place had already tightened the hold of the State on unemployment insurance: the “professional future” law of September 2018 now requires managers of the system to negotiate the rules applicable to job seekers within the framework of a guidance letter drafted by the executive.
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