Open to dialogue but within carefully defined boundaries. Received in turn, Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 May, by Elisabeth Borne, the three main employers’ organizations (Medef, CPME and U2P) reviewed the social issues of the moment, highlighting those on which they are willing to move forward. A priority seems to emerge at this stage: the employment of seniors. This concern is logical since it will occupy a central place in the implementation of the pension reform, the objective of which is to make people who have reached their sixties or who are approaching work longer.
The talks between the Prime Minister and the leaders of the employers’ movement follow on from the meetings that took place on May 16 and 17 at the Hôtel de Matignon with the union leaders. This series of meetings aims to give content to the “work life pact” announced in mid-April by Emmanuel Macron. The President of the Republic then proposed to the social partners to launch all-out negotiations on “essential topics” : sharing of wealth, professional retraining, hardship, retention of aging employees, etc.
On this last item, employers seem to have good intentions. “What we are ready to discuss, which seems most urgent, is the employment of seniors”said Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, at the end of his head-to-head with Mme Thick headed. The president of the Medef did not provide details, while outlining several avenues: development of “transitions” at the end of the career, development of the “phased retirement” – a device that allows you to work part-time while receiving a fraction of your pension.
Medef’s “red line”
There is “things to do, maybe, around the jobs of senior executives who often have high salaries, [ce qui] hinders their hiring by companies », continued Mr. Roux de Bézieux. He also mentioned the unemployment benefit granted over longer periods to those who are at least 53 years old: such a parameter “can be a brake on the resumption of employment” And “sometimes encourages companies (…) to put seniors out of work”.
François Asselin, the number one of the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME), also devoted a good part of his remarks to this theme, during the exchange he had with the Prime Minister. He endeavored to defend one of his flagship demands: exemption from employer contributions to unemployment insurance for employment contracts signed by seniors, in order to encourage recruitment of this age category. A somewhat similar measure had been introduced in the pension reform, on the initiative of the Senate, but it was censured by the Constitutional Council, on the grounds that it represented a “social rider”, irrelevant to the purpose of the law. Another provision invalidated by the judges of the Rue de Montpensier in Paris: the senior index, which intended to objectify the place of sixties in companies. Employers are against it, but the government wants to restore it, as confirmed on Tuesday by Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor.
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