The social partners are slowly moving towards a compromise on unemployment insurance. And this despite management proposals that briefly tense the situation this week. Employer organizations and unions met on Friday, November 8 for a third and penultimate negotiation session that clarified certain positions.
On Wednesday, the employers’ association decided to liven up the session with the presentation of a draft agreement in which it proposed, in particular, toughening the compensation conditions for intermittent workers in the entertainment industry, increasing the number of hours necessary to be compensated. However, faced with the unanimous rebellion of the unions, the employers quickly backed down on this point on Friday morning.
We can easily imagine that the government only moderately approved of an idea that risked provoking a large-scale social movement. A few hundred workers gathered in the morning in front of the headquarters of Unédic (the joint organization that manages unemployment insurance), where the meeting took place, to protest against the employers’ proposal.
Request from the Minister of Labor
Therefore, Friday’s debates continued on the other proposals of the project to “modify the agreement on unemployment insurance” signed on November 23, 2023 between the employers’ association and the CFDT, FO and the CFTC. A commitment that Gabriel Attal’s government refused to validate in the spring of this year, but which serves as the basis for this new negotiation. However, the social partners must heed the request of the Minister of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, to take measures to “generate 400 million euros of additional savings annually.”
The draft agreement therefore plans to review the rules relating to cross-border workers: people who reside in France but have worked in a neighboring country. The issue has been on the table for several weeks because the current provisions are expensive, in particular because they provide for the calculation of the benefit based on the remuneration received, which in some cases is much higher than that in France, particularly for those who have worked. in Switzerland or Luxembourg.
The text provides that the subsidy for these employees will now be calculated according to a “coefficient that takes into account differences in average wages between States of employment” and France. It is also proposed to establish specific monitoring of these people, with more intense support and taking into account French remuneration in job offers. “We are very aware that by combining all these levers we can estimate that we will be able to save to respond to the Minister’s request”observes the CFDT negotiator, Olivier Guivarch, who specifies that “responsibilities” then you must “to be taken by the government”.
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