Lhe former belligerents are talking again, even if they have not signed an armistice. After clashing for six months over pension reform, the executive and the unions put an end to hostilities and are now tackling other issues together in a less electric atmosphere. This is by no means a time for reconciliation – employee organizations have not digested the fact that the government has forced a reduction in the age of eligibility for a pension to 64 years. But, despite the wounds still open, the two camps are re-seated around a table, with their sights set on the social conference which should take place on October 16.
While each start of the school year traditionally fuels speculation about the return to school and its degree of conflict, another question emerges: “Contractual Republic”which Emmanuel Macron said he defended from his first five-year term, will it finally happen, after six years of exercising power during which the intermediary bodies were often ignored, even mistreated?
Initiated in mid-April by the President of the Republic, when he expressed the wish to bring back “appeasement” in “one hundred days”, the return to normal between the executive and the unions really began to take shape on July 12. That day, Elisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, simultaneously received the leaders of the main employee organizations and employers’ movements. An unprecedented event since his arrival at the Matignon hotel in May 2022. The meeting made it possible to outline a “social agenda” – that is to say a program of negotiations spread out until the first quarter of 2024. Among the themes to be examined in this framework, there are career developments and the quality of employment, the aim being to promote upward paths and full-time contracts so that workers earn a better living.
” Return match “
But the promise of discussions on these issues was not enough, in the eyes of the unions, to address the number one concern of all households: the protection of purchasing power. The announcement, at the end of August, by Mr. Macron of a social conference constitutes a sign of openness: it broadens the scope of reflection to “the evolution of wages and income”with increased attention to professional branches whose pay scales contain coefficients below the minimum wage.
This mid-October meeting raises many expectations. “We are not here to take a beautiful photo on the steps of Matignon”warned Marylise Léon, the general secretary of the CFDT, in a interview at Humanity. Even more biting, her CGT counterpart, Sophie Binet, wants “scare the bosses”as she confided to Opinion. After losing the pension battle, the union centers would like to win the “return match”, by obtaining progress in the field of remuneration. They will have the opportunity to say it again, on October 13 – three days before the social conference – on the occasion of a day of European action.
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