“Everything will cost more”: the unions return for the first time to Matignon, the pension page is not turned
2023-05-16 05:08:00
After a meeting with the inter-union at the beginning of April which had turned short, Elisabeth Borne this time receives each of the five representative organizations, without a specific agenda.
The Prime Minister, regularly heckled by pans of opponents of the reform, says to herself “listening to priorities” trade unions and employers’ organisations.
As she blows out her first candle at Matignon on Tuesday, receiving Monday a satisfaction from Emmanuel Macron for his action tinged with “strength, determination and courage”, she will meet at the end of the afternoon with FO and the CFDT. Then Wednesday morning with the CFE-CGC and the CFTC, before the CGT in the afternoon.
These meetings are part of the roadmap that Emmanuel Macron entrusted to Elisabeth Borne to relaunch the executive after the pension crisis.
The intersyndicale reiterated Monday in a press release its opposition “determined” to the reform, against which it organizes a 14th day of strike and demonstrations on June 6, two days before the examination of a bill of the Liot group aiming at its repeal.
The unions invite the deputies to vote for it, to “(respect) thus the will of the population massively expressed since January”.
Messenger bag
The general secretaries of the CFDT Laurent Berger (G) and the CGT Sophie Binet (R) before their meeting with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in Paris, April 5, 2023 Photo POOL/AFP / Bertrand GUAY.
Liot’s text is the subject of intense reflection by the groups of the majority who weigh in particular the argument of“financial inadmissibility”in reference to the constitutional rule that a proposal from parliamentarians cannot degrade public finances.
Elisabeth Borne gathered on Sunday at Matignon to discuss the Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem groups, with the President of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet. Several ministers and leaders of the majority also spoke about it at the Elysée on Monday morning, according to a participant. The Majority Intergroup will unveil its strategy on Tuesday.
After the forced adoption of the pension reform, which fueled the May 1 protests, the unions come with a bag full of demands and could raise the stakes.
In the context of inflation, the unions mainly hear about wages, and will repeat that they consider “unfair and brutal” the degressivity of unemployment benefits or the conditionality of access to the RSA (minimum income for people without resources, editor’s note) – whose beneficiaries could be subject to sanctions.
All unions calls for public aid to businesses to be “conditioned” to social objectives, such as higher wages, and environmental.
The CFDT will ask for a suspension of exemptions from contributions for branches which have minima lower than the minimum wage. The CGT, which comes, in the words of its N.1 Sophie Binet at Parisian “to make demands”, “to negotiate, not to discuss”wants for its part an indexation of wages on the rise in prices.
Autonomous
The employers’ organizations, which will be received next week, would have preferred independent negotiations with the unions before seeing the government. The Medef regularly highlights their agreement on value sharing.
In addition to the employment of seniors or arduous work, so many subjects challenged by the reform by the Constitutional Council, the Prime Minister intends to build with the social partners a “agenda social” for a “new work life pact”.
A law project, “who will embark on the outcome of the negotiations” between unions and employers, should be tabled at the end of the yearor at the beginning of 2024, according to Matignon.
But despite the resumption of dialogue, “mistrust will remain extremely deep”warned Sophie Binet for whom “there will be no return to normal if this (pension) reform is not abandoned”.
“We will continue to say that the page has not been turned” on pensions, but “we can’t not talk about inflation, purchasing power”explains to AFP the president of the CFTC Cyril Chabanier, considering that the unions are “in a position of strength thanks to the social movement”.
“Everything will cost more”abounds Laurent Berger, boss of the CFDT, who will also have requirements in terms of method. “What is the co-construction in which they intend to enter?”.