The problem is not new, but it seems to have grown during the year 2021. Today, there are more professional branches in which the minimum wages, defined by collective agreements, are lower at minimum wage. These cases of ” noncompliance “ have even reached a threshold “historically high”, according to the latest report of the committee of experts on the minimum wage, published at the beginning of December 2021.
The phenomenon results, in large part, from recent revaluations of the minimum wage, in particular that which took place in the 1er October 2021. Many branch agreements have not been renegotiated since. As a result, these texts provide for salary scales whose base has been “caught up” or even exceeded by the minimum wage. In the poultry industries, there are thus “twelve coefficients–below the minimum wage, according to the CFDT agri-food federation. In the last quarter of 2021, 108 branches had at least one level of remuneration below the minimum wage.
” It’s shocking “
The workers concerned cannot, however, be paid below the minimum wage, and the companies retain, moreover, the ability to outsell the collective agreements. But nothing prevents bosses from sticking to non-compliant grids. Such a situation poses a problem, especially since it increases “the number of employees and the payroll entitling to reductions in social security contributions on low salaries”, as underlined by Gilbert This, president of the group of experts on the minimum wage.
The system is likely to encourage “to non-virtue”, he adds, employers have every interest in maintaining obsolete grids in order to be able to pocket larger contribution exemptions. “It is shocking, because such behavior leads to revenue losses for our social protection systems, which can turn out to be significant”, he points out.
Philippe Martinez, the general secretary of the CGT, denounces this drift. For him, the minima provided for by collective agreements should “be automatically revalued” each time the minimum wage is revised upwards.