“The departments must reaffirm their support for the voluntary sector of home help”

Tribune. The Minister for Autonomy, Brigitte Bourguignon, announced on 1^er April 2021 the government’s desire to approve amendment 43 to the collective agreement for the home help, support, care and services branch, which will take effect on 1^er October 2021.

This addendum 43, signed on February 26, 2020, required four years of negotiations between the social partners, who unanimously signed it: the main body in the sector, the Union Syndicale des Employers de la branch de la aide à domicile ( USB-Home), Firstly ; CFDT, CGT and FO, on the other hand. Its approval is therefore a historic event for the home association branch, which has not experienced a significant salary increase since 2002.

The first levels of the salary scale of the collective agreement being largely immersed in the minimum wage, a newly hired home help was of course paid at the minimum wage, but without any prospect of an increase for more than ten years, and the average salary of most of the 225,000 employees in the branch – home care workers – capped at 960 euros net per month.

The State acts in responsibility

A situation that is obviously untenable for our employees, but also for employers; it was indeed becoming impossible to carry out each year the 20,000 recruitments necessary to meet the growing demand of a population 85% wishing to live and age at home, in the context of a doubling of the number of people over 65 years of age. by 2050.

While companies in the lucrative sector have complete latitude to increase the salaries of their employees, especially over the course of their price increases (admittedly supervised for a part of their activity), and the State is not intended to intervene in In this area, the associative branch depends, in order to revalue its salaries, on the approval by the State of an amendment to its collective agreement.

It is therefore difficult to evoke preferential treatment, while this approval is ultimately only the only possibility given to the associative sector of an essential catch-up to offer its employees perspectives equivalent to those offered to employees in the private sector. By approving this amendment, the State also emphasizes that it “Acts responsibly” and that “this decision will help strengthen social justice and pay equity”.

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