They were on the front line in “the war” against Covid-19, in the words of Emmanuel Macron. Bakers, cashiers, garbage collectors, cleaners, transporters… will wander the streets of the capital this Thursday, February 3 to claim recognition. The CFDT will organize a “march of essential workers” in Paris, in order to highlight these insufficiently recognized employees, announced its secretary general Laurent Berger on France Inter on Monday.
These workers risk drifting away from the labor market if they are not recognized “in the mindset of society, but also in terms of wages, career development”, he pleaded. If the CFDT does not join the day of interprofessional mobilization on wages and employment this Thursday, at the call of the inter-union CGT-FO-FSU-Solidaires, it calls for a revaluation of wages .
Salary increase and branch minima
“The Smic is the hiring salary for someone who is not qualified. Staying there all your life, as is the case in certain professional branches, is unbearable,” underlined Mr. Berger.
For the union leader, the challenge is not so much to increase this minimum wage – as several left-wing presidential candidates propose – as to raise the branch minimums.
“Obviously the level of the Smic is important and the revaluation of the Smic according to inflation is very important. But then it is necessary to oblige each branch in the three months which follow the revaluation of the Smic to increase their minima of branch for at least that they are with the Smic , he affirmed.
“Today 63% of the 171 main branches have minima below the minimum wage. This means that we agree (to the fact) that more and more people are going to be on the minimum wage”, he explained, while “more than two million people are on the minimum wage”, including “60% of women”.
“This health crisis, if it has had an advantage, it is that we looked at these essential workers in the face, these workers who every day make the economy work, make society work”, he estimated.
In many professional branches the salary grids start below the minimum wage. Employers are obliged to pay their employees at the minimum wage level, but this means that the latter experience little salary evolution during their career.