Lhe stopping point is brutal and rather unexpected. After three and a half months of discussions, the unions and employers noted, during the night of April 9 to 10, their inability to conclude a “new pact for life at work”. This unsuccessful outcome is striking because, for a little over a year, employee and employer organizations had managed to find, on other issues, compromises presenting progress – like the one, put together in February 2023, on “value sharing”. The failure, which occurred a month ago, cast a chill among those involved. So much so that it is reasonable to wonder whether social democracy is entering an ice age, at the risk of sinking into lethargy.
For unions and employers, the negotiation relating to a “new pact for life at work” was one that they should not miss. This exercise was proposed to them by Emmanuel Macron, shortly after the promulgation – in mid-April 2023 – of the pension reform, which shifted the age of eligibility for a pension from 62 to 64 years. The President of the Republic wanted to entrust the social partners with the task of identifying solutions so that people who have reached the age of sixty remain in work longer.
Such an offer was intriguing, coming from a head of state accused of having a poor opinion of intermediary bodies. At the same time, it constituted a perfect opportunity for the social partners to demonstrate their ability to develop concrete measures together. At the end of 2023, they took up the challenge, by initiating reflection around four axes: promoting the employment of seniors, preventing arduous tasks, facilitating retraining and establishing a universal time savings account (CETU) – so that workers can take breaks at any time during their professional career.
At the start of the negotiations, one could think that they had a chance of leading to a positive result, all the protagonists having reaffirmed their faith in paritarianism. A hope also maintained by the good intentions of employers: “The approach that aims to fire people at the end of their career is over”launched Eric Chevée, vice-president of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME), calling for a “paradigm shift”.
Swallowing snakes
But the revolution did not take place. The parties involved separated without having reached a consensus, which is rare for a negotiation of this type, conducted at the interprofessional level. Obviously, each camp blamed its counterpart for the “exit”. “ [Le Medef et la CPME] went so far as to make us proposals (…) which degraded the current situation”denounced Marylise Léon, the general secretary of the CFDT, in the columns of Release. And to drive the point home, in unusually abrasive terms in his mouth: “They make fun of employees by considering that the time has come to reduce their rights. » The two employer movements retort that they have made concessions, but that the unions have been far too greedy, ignoring the executive’s specifications: no increase in public spending.
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