by Caroline Pailliez
PARIS (Reuters) – The index point which serves as the basis for calculating the remuneration of civil servants will be increased by 3.5% on July 1, the Minister of Transformation and the Civil Service, Stanislas Guerini, announced on Tuesday.
The Minister received on Tuesday morning the trade unions of the Public Service to announce to them the purchasing power aid measures envisaged for civil servants and contract workers in the face of the acceleration of inflation.
The government had committed to a thaw of this index point, which has not changed since 2010, apart from an increase of 0.6% in 2016 and another of 0.6% in 2017.
This measure, which concerns the 5.7 million civil servants, amounts to around 7.5 billion euros, according to the minister, who specifies that no more agents will be paid the minimum wage. They will receive at least 3.7% more than the minimum wage.
The unions demanded an increase ranging from 3% for the CFDT to 20% for the CFTC.
“The Minister is fully aware of not responding to all the subjects of attractiveness, career prospects, remuneration. It will therefore be necessary to work to act on the in-depth redefinition of remuneration and careers in the Public Service”, specified the ministry in a document sent to the trade unions during the meeting.
For the CFDT, “the measures announced today are a significant first step”.
“Certainly, the CFDT expected more and better, including on targeted measures. An increase in the value of the index point of 3.5% is unprecedented, but in an equally unprecedented inflation context”, said to Reuters Mylène Jacquot, general secretary of the CFDT Public functions.
Other measures on purchasing power have been announced, for a total cost of 110 million euros.
“NOT UP”
They include, for example, expanded access to the sustainable mobility package, which encourages the use of cleaner transport for home-work journeys, or even the renewal of the individual purchasing power guarantee in 2022, a compensation mechanism for the loss of purchasing power.
The beginnings of the career of categories B – middle management agents – will also be upgraded. And the state has also agreed to better compensate for the cost of meals taken in administrative restaurants.
In addition to these measures, there are individual increases for agents linked to their advancement, which are around 1.5% on average.
For the CGT, the answers “provided today are not up to par”. “The value of the point must be the subject of an effort of unprecedented magnitude, which the CGT figures for a first measure at least 10% increase, measure retroactive to January 1”, writes the federation on its Facebook page .
The CGT wishes an indexation of the value of the point on the inflation, a revalorization of the beginnings of career of the categories C – the functions of execution – and claims, at the very least, the installation of regular meetings on these subjects.
Force Ouvrière also believes that the measures are “largely insufficient” in view of the loss of purchasing power of agents in the last two decades.
“We were perhaps at a crossroads to say: ‘we are getting out of austerity policies, we are going back to at least putting the same level as inflation in terms of point value’ and even there, we are not there. does not happen”, declared Christian Grolier, the secretary general of FO Public Service who will consult his authorities to find out if mobilization is possible on these questions at the start of the school year.
The UNSA welcomes the thawing of the point but also believes that the revaluation does not compensate for the loss of purchasing power linked to the explosion in the cost of living.
Stanislas Guerini has agreed to review the trade union organizations in September to initiate an overhaul of the compensation system and career paths to enhance the attractiveness of the Civil Service.
(Report Caroline Pailliez, written by Myriam Rivet, edited by Nicolas Delame, Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Sophie Louet)