In the midst of pension reform, Gabriel Attal insists on the “relation to work” and highlights the four-day week experienced at Urssaf

This is the subject that was invited hollow in the debates launched around the pension reform: the question of the relationship to work. While the social protest movement is gaining voice in the street, the executive, which refuses any change of course on the postponement of the starting age to 64, is trying to light a counter-fire on this ground. Insofar as the French will have to work more, the government claims to want to be at “listening to their expectations”initiating a “global thinking” on the job in the months to come.

The announcement made in Opinion by Gabriel Attal, Wednesday January 31, is therefore timely. The minister in charge of public accounts has chosen to highlight the first experimentation of the four-day week in a public service. “I believe that many French people today aspire to work differently” and are ” in favor of more freedom in their organization”, argued Mr. Attal. The lucky winner happens to be the Union for the recovery of social security contributions and family allowances (Urssaf) of Picardy – a private law body with a public service mission –, at the forefront of reflections on the quality of work life.

As for the timing of the announcement, Gabriel Attal assumes with the World “to focus on this project, in a context where the pension reform has an eruptive nature, not only on the question of the retirement age, but also on the question of the relationship to work “. The budget minister argues: “We must take measures in the coming months to improve well-being at work, as we do in the pension reform on hardship or the opening of progressive retirement in the public service. »

Read the decryption: Article reserved for our subscribers The four-day week, positive for employees… and for the employer

This experiment was launched by Urssaf Picardie in 2022 and came into force at the beginning of January. The approximately three hundred agents that the organization has can thus choose to concentrate their thirty-six hours of weekly work over four working days instead of five, with an extended working hours, to free up an additional day of rest per week.

An experiment born from the initiative of the organization

A month after the launch of the device, they are only two employees to have embarked on the experimentation of the four-day week (with an additional day of rest chosen on Wednesday), underlines Pierre Feneyrol, the regional director of Ursaff Picardie. The others still have until 1er March to decide to take part.

The question of the four-day week, tested in more and more private companies in Europe and in France, corresponds to a demand from employees for more flexibility in their work organization. says the director of the organization. He adds : ” Last summer we launched a specific questionnaire with our agents to find out their interest in the matter. A hundred found it interesting while forty said they were ready to test the four-day week in the short or medium term. »

Read the analysis: Article reserved for our subscribers The four-day week to work more

Management then entered into negotiations with union representatives (CFDT, CFE-CGC, FO, CFTC) on the issue, within the broader framework of discussions around a global agreement “relating to the management and organization of working time”. All the players have agreed to supervise the experiment, leaving the choice to the employees to participate and by introducing a review clause after one year to allow a medium-term evaluation of the system. The memorandum of understanding was then approved in the fall by the Union of National Social Security Funds, then by the Social Security Directorate, which depends on both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Economy. , before coming into force at the beginning of 2023.

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Both the unions and the management hope that the experiment will grow and will be able to meet the expectations set out in the agreement: to improve the balance between the professional and personal lives of employees as well as their quality of life at work. and their productivity, and in no way deteriorate the quality of the public service rendered. For his part, Gabriel Attal wants to eventually extend this type of initiative “to other administrations, and in particular the General Directorate of Public Finances”. Finally, he points out that“A similar experiment has also been launched at the National Old Age Insurance Fund”.

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