2023-11-11 07:09:03
Published on Nov 11, 2023 at 8:09 am
Started Thursday in the middle of the afternoon, the final phase of the negotiation of the social partners for the next Unédic convention ended on Friday night with an agreement, despite the little room for maneuver in the framework letter that the government had imposed on them. Medef, CPME and U2P on the employers’ side have found a compromise with the CFDT, the CFTC and FO, even if their bodies have yet to endorse it. The CFE-CGC slammed the door at the start of the evening because it had not obtained the removal of the degression of executive allocations. The CGT played the game until the end without hiding that it would not sign.
Very technical, the text, which has yet to receive approval from Matignon, slightly improves the lot of the unemployed. It reinforces the employers’ desire not to degrade the cost of labor while an increase in the AGS contribution is looming, even if it has had to reduce its claims. Beyond that, its importance is above all political: faced with the executive’s control over unemployment insurance since the election of Emmanuel Macron, the agreement maintains the illusion that the social partners retain control over one of their last bastions of equality.
Totally unacceptable
“This negotiation is ending positively in a very particular context,” said Medef leader Hubert Mongon. On Thursday, when the unions discovered the first version of the draft employers’ agreement, the matter was off to a very bad start. Reduction of senior compensation rules by two years to take into account the increase from 62 to 64 in the legal retirement age, retained activity (childminders), or even drastic savings for intermittent workers in the entertainment industry: despite some progress, the copy was totally unacceptable to them.
The rejection was all the more unanimous when added to the 0.1 point reduction in employer unemployment contributions demanded by employers (currently 4.05%). The result is a loss of 3 billion in revenue from 2024 to 2027 for Unédic, making it all the more difficult to respect the golden rule imposed by the government: any new rights for the unemployed must be financed by as many savings.
“We sense a total blockage from the employers,” Denis Gravouil then reacted for the CGT. “The further we advance, the narrower the passageway. It’s no longer a mouse hole, it’s a needle’s eye,” confided – half-disillusioned, half-confident – Michel Beaugas for FO, while Olivier Guivarch, for the CFDT, did not hide his embarrassment. .
For 700 million new rights
Again Friday morning with a second version without almost any opening, the unions then openly doubting the desire of the management trio to top. It was necessary to wait until the end of the afternoon, after very long session interruptions and at the end of a remote conclave between the leaders of the CFDT, the CFTC and FO, for the negotiations to really get underway on a text redacted from the union red lines.
For what results? In terms of new rights, first-time entrants to the labor market and seasonal workers can be compensated from 5 months of activity, one less than common law. The formula for calculating the daily allowance, tightened in 2021 by the government, will be improved. The 30% reduction in the allowance after six months (degressive reduction) will only apply to those under 55, compared to 57 currently. These four measures will cause nearly 700 million additional expenses for Unédic, again from 2024 to 2027.
The agreement then marks the end of the employer unemployment contribution of 0.05% decided in 2017 and which was to stop in 2020, causing a loss of revenue of 1.5 billion. To avoid sinking the boat, however, the employers decided against an additional reduction of 0.05%.
To finance all of this, two very strong measures have been decided. Firstly, payment of the allowance will be made on the basis of 30 calendar days, including months of 31 days and including for unemployed people currently receiving compensation (for months of 31 days, the day paid less the will be at the end of rights). Targeted economy: 950 million! “The unemployed will have to pay for their meal on the 31st day,” denounced Denis Gravouil. The other major saving concerns the hunt for windfall effects for unemployed business creators (870 million).
These two measures are not enough to respect the golden rule, especially since the social partners have finally confirmed the status quo on the intermittent side, the 440 million missing on the savings side will come from raising the age limits to take into account the pension reform. Except that the measure, which the unions categorically refused to see included in the protocol, was referred to an amendment once the future inter-professional negotiation on the employment of seniors was completed, whatever its outcome.
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