Work ? A key question, exacerbated by the debates on pension reform and which the government intends to tackle quickly with the help of unions and employers to open a new post-retirement social sequence. Always with full employment as our goal. This is essentially the contract that Emmanuel Macron offered to the unions and employers this Wednesday during his television interview, without really convincing them for lack of specific and new commitments.
“I want to reengage with the social partners very quickly,” said the Head of State, referring to a period of three weeks to a month to decide on the “objects and method” of future consultations with those concerned. Given their first reactions, very muscular, we do not see the union numbers rushing to the Elysée, Matignon or the Ministry of Labor.
Share the value in the law as soon as possible
Once the mobilizations in the street are over, the thread of social dialogue will not be rewoven without convincing those concerned that their word does not go through profit and loss.
“What’s the point of consultation? To listen to what the government wants, ”said Laurent Berger recently, for the CFDT. Same story on the side of the boss of the Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, for whom the next reforms “will have to be based on a different method”.
The first step will involve a rapid transcription, in the Labor Code in particular, of the entirety of the national interprofessional agreement on the sharing of value. This transcription will be done via a bill so as not to wait for the future full-employment bill, the scope and timetable of which are being redefined. Beyond that, what will be the other objects of consultation?
Difficult to see clearly, Emmanuel Macron having remained quite vague. The president did mention these employees who leave “with broken backs” at the age of 60 to point out the need to better prevent professional wear and tear from the age of 55. “We have to take the problem head on,” he insisted, without anyone understanding whether he was going to propose anything other than what the pension reform already provides (in particular two funds of 1.1 billion by 2027).
RSA, minimum branch salaries, etc.
Support for RSA beneficiaries, to increase their rate of return to work? There again, nothing new, knowing that an experiment is in progress in a logic of rights (of the person to be helped by the future France Travail) and duties (to follow a steering wheel of weekly activities, on the model of the youth employment contract).
Nothing new either concerning the updates of the minimum wages of branches to take into account the many increases of the SMIC: the Ministry of Labor marks them with the pants, knowing that the INSEE envisages a new increase in the minimum wage in the spring taking into account the ‘inflation. Same vagueness, finally, on how the Head of State wants career management to be synonymous with better remuneration.
What about the universal time savings account
Other subjects, not mentioned during the interview, will also have to go through consultation with the social partners before landing in a particular piece of legislation. These include the introduction of a universal time savings account, that is to say, attached to the person throughout his career, like the personal training account (CPF).
It is also about overhauling the governance of unemployment insurance. Time is running out because it will have to be followed, in the new framework that will emerge, by the negotiation of a new Unédic agreement, ie the body of compensation rules updated before the end of the year.