Posted Oct 25, 2022, 7:17 PMUpdated on Oct 25, 2022 at 7:55 PM
Without 49.3 but not without political stakes. After its adoption by the National Assembly in early October, the bill “on emergency measures relating to the functioning of the labor market with a view to full employment” was on track to receive the anointing of the Senate on Tuesday, the debates in public session continuing in the evening. The path towards a new reform of unemployment insurance wanted by Emmanuel Macron is strengthened, provided that the joint joint committee finds a compromise on the alterations made by the upper house of Parliament.
These alterations, registered by the Social Affairs Committee, were validated during the debates in the hemicycle at the Luxembourg Palace despite the government’s attempt to restore its original plan. They are far from trivial and will impose on the majority a clever balancing act between LR deputies and senators who will play the referees.
“Give back the hand to the social partners”
The first modification relates to the refusals of certain employees to convert their CDD or temporary mission into CDI. Adopted in the Social Affairs Committee, a new article removes access to unemployment benefits after three refusals in the last twelve months. The Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, opposed practical reservations – the employer must send the CDI proposal to Pôle emploi – but also, and this is new, in substance.
“There is no reason to sanction an employee who has gone to the end of his commitment. The situation is very different from that of job abandonment, which is a unilateral decision,” he pleaded, recalling that the employer can refuse to pay the precariousness bonus. The change in posture is notorious because in the Assembly, the government had referred the subject to further expertise.
For Senator LR from Isère and rapporteur of the bill, Frédérique Puissat, on the contrary, it is necessary to return to what is the basis of the right to receive unemployment benefit, namely involuntary deprivation of employment. Chaining fixed-term contracts is a life choice that we must respect, but “from the moment we make this life choice, we are not entitled to unemployment benefit”, she defended.
Busy schedule
The other important changes concern article 1. In its initial version, it authorized the government to define the rules for compensating the unemployed until 31 December 2023 at the latest, the time needed to complete a negotiation between the social partners on the governance of Unédic. In the name of respect for parity, the senators brought the deadline to August 31. This freedom given to the government, “it is not necessary to make it last longer than necessary”, defended Pascale Gruny, senator LR of Aisne.
Invoking a very busy schedule – establishment of France travail, agreement between the State, Unédic and Pôle emploi, governance of the unemployment insurance scheme – Olivier Dussopt defended the maintenance of the deadline. “We are giving back the hand to the social partners through a transitional device which is inspired by article L1 of the Labor Code”, retorted Frédérique Puissat dryly.
The senators drove the point home by imposing a return to the rules of governance of the negotiations of the Unédic convention which prevailed before those established by the law For the freedom to choose one’s professional future of 2018. Result, as adopted, article 1 plans to return to a guidance document – and no longer a more corseted framing letter.