Received this Tuesday and Wednesday by Elisabeth Borne, the unions could raise the stakes

2023-05-16 05:15:49

Will the executive succeed in relaunching social dialogue? The unions are expected this Tuesday and Wednesday at Matignon for the first time since the promulgation of the highly contested pension reform, which could place them “in a position of strength” in the negotiations.

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 she is “listening to the priorities” of trade unions and employers’ organisations.

The “determined” inter-union on pensions

As she blows out her first candle at Matignon on Tuesday, receiving Monday a satisfaction from Emmanuel Macron for her action, 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.

The arm wrestling still promises to be intense. The inter-union in fact reiterated Monday in a press release its “determined” opposition to the pension reform, against which it is organizing a 14th day of strike and demonstrations on June 6, two days before the examination of a bill. of the Liot group seeking its repeal.

The unions especially come to Matignon with many demands and could raise the stakes. In the context of inflation, they hear about wages, and repeat that they consider “unfair and brutal” the degressiveness of unemployment benefits or the conditionality of access to the RSA.

All the unions also demand that public aid to companies be “conditioned” on social objectives, such as higher wages, and environmental ones. The CFDT will ask for a suspension of exemptions from contributions for branches that have minima lower than the Smic. The CGT, which comes, in the words of its N.1 Sophie Binet at Parisian “to make demands”, “to negotiate, not to discuss”, wishes an indexation of wages on the rise in prices. The president of the CFTC Cyril Chabanier judges for his part that one “cannot not speak of inflation, of purchasing power”. Above all, he believes that the unions are “in a position of strength thanks to the social movement”.

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 “social agenda” for a “new pact for life at work”. A bill, “which will embed the result of the negotiations” between the unions and the employers, should be tabled at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2024, according to Matignon.

The employers’ organisations, which will be received next week, would, on the other hand, have preferred independent negotiations with the unions before seeing the government. The Medef indeed regularly highlights their agreement on the sharing of value.