Philippe Martinez takes his pilgrim’s staff to carry a demand which is dear to him: to reduce the weekly working time from thirty-five to thirty-two hours. During a press conference, the secretary general of the CGT announced, Thursday, October 14, that his union will initiate a communication operation in favor of this change in legislation. “Our ambition is to have a real measure to largely resolve the issue of those who do not have a job”, did he declare. According to him, if this proposal were implemented, it would create ” basically, (…) more than two million jobs ”, in the public and in the private sector.
Through this approach, the confederation of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) is in fact relaunching an awareness campaign initiated in 2016, shortly after Mr. Martinez “Took the head of the organization”, as Baptiste Talbot recalled, the “Campaign pilot”. The management of the CGT considers that the thirty-two-hour week is an avenue “Which is gaining ground”, as illustrated by the news beyond our borders. In Germany, the IG Metall union suggests applying it to avoid layoffs. For its part, the Spanish government has decided to test this solution in 200 companies, while maintaining staff remuneration. “We are not the CGT, all alone, with its eccentric ideas”, quipped Mr. Martinez.
For the Cégétiste leader, “We need a law” which records the thirty-two hours as “Reference”. “That does not mean that it applies everywhere in the same way”, he said, insisting on the fact that the subject must be discussed within companies with employees, because they are well placed to define the most suitable hourly rhythms. In his mind, lowering the legal working time implies paying staff at the same level and forcing employers to hire, otherwise the system will generate employment. “Disorganization”. An allusion to hospitals, where the passage to thirty-five hours, twenty years ago, destabilized the teams, with situations of understaffing.
The government disapproves
By the way, Mr. Martinez criticized “The President of the Republic, the ministers, the Medef”, which hammer home the discourse according to which “The French would be lazy because they do not work enough”. Official statistics show that this is not the case, he continued, since employees ” fulltime “ accomplish more than thirty-five hours per week. Besides, “France is one of the countries in the world where the level of productivity is the highest”, which is not without causing problems: multiplication of “Burn out” and ” professional diseases “, “Hardship” increased of certain tasks …
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