unions and employers fail to reach an agreement

The last forty-eight hours of negotiations will not have been enough: the employee union organizations established, on the night of Tuesday April 9 to Wednesday April 10, a failure after three and a half months of negotiations on the employment of seniors, compromising the validation by the government of the unemployment insurance agreement negotiated in the fall.

The final text submitted for signature by the employers’ organizations does not create “no new rights for employees”, regretted the negotiator of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Yvan Ricordeau, at the end of the talks; an observation shared by the four other unions. “There is no new right, there is less destruction [de droits] than expected, but above all there are major shortcomings”also pointed out the negotiator of Force Ouvrière (FO), Michel Beaugas, who reserved the position of his organization.

“We will list the pluses and minuses: there won’t be much more”explained Denis Gravouil for the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). “The opinion that I am going to pass on to our authorities is not favorable”added Eric Courpotin (French Confederation of Christian Workers, CFTC), while Jean-François Foucard (French Confederation of Management – General Confederation of Executives, CFE-CGC) said he would propose to his governing body “not to sign this agreement”.

A right to progressive retirement too expensive

Several unions affirmed that an employer opening on a right to progressive retirement could have changed the situation, but the Movement of Companies of France (Medef) like the government argued that the measure was too expensive. “The employers did not want this negotiation from the start, they tried to turn it around” to better evacuate it, estimated Mr. Ricordeau. The CFDT’s support for the text was decisive in reaching a compromise.

FO and the CFDT will bring together their governing bodies on Wednesday April 10 and Thursday April 11 to formally decide whether or not to validate the agreement, but the negative declarations of their negotiators leave little doubt that their decision will be negative. .

The fifth and final version of the text, which included very few substantive changes compared to the two previous versions, was submitted by the employers to the employee unions late on Tuesday evening, without satisfying them. The Medef negotiator, Hubert Mongon, regretted that the unions had maintained their initial positions during all the negotiations.

He recalled that his organization had wanted “ensure that we work to increase the employment rate in the country”by improving the quality of the working environment, while avoiding “professional disintegration”. According to him, the draft agreement submitted for signature responded “to a certain number of aspirations” of several employee unions.

A target of 65% employment rate for seniors by 2030

This failure gives back control to the government, which had undertaken in the event of an agreement to transcribe the text into law, the stated aim of which was to increase the employment rate of seniors, lower in France than in most European countries. As expected, the universal time savings account (CETU), promoted by the CFDT, but rejected by Medef and the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME), was also absent from the final text. As a reminder, the government has set the objective of an employment rate of 65% “by 2030” for 60-64 year olds.

Supposed to allow all workers to convert days of leave or rest into remuneration or to retire early, it should however be the subject of a separate negotiation in the near future – possibly Tuesday April 16 – at the he initiative of the Union of Local Businesses (U2P), the third employers’ organization, which represents craftsmen, liberal professions and traders.

The meeting scheduled for Wednesday in the event of agreement at Unédic to sign an amendment on compensation for seniors, in the presence of the unions signatories to the November unemployment insurance agreement (CFDT, FO and CFTC) and the three organizations employers is, she, “postponed pending the final decision of the various parties”, according to the Medef representative. This signature was to pave the way for the validation of the joint agreement by the government.

The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, has already announced his desire to further tighten the conditions of compensation for the unemployed to, he justifies, further encourage them to return to work.

The social partners should therefore receive a new framework letter in the spring to negotiate a new agreement, with savings for unemployment insurance, while the government seeks to find savings in order to reduce the public deficit.