Inflation, wages and pension reform confront unions with the Macron government

by time news

2023-05-17 00:20:43

As Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has been in office for one year and dreams of staying, French trade unionists returned to dialogue with the government. Fuerza Obrera and its representative Fréderic Souillot opened the dance “but we did not dance,” their representatives said.

They returned to the Matignon palace and were received this Tuesday and will do so on Wednesday. It is the first time they have met, after the 13 marches against the pension reforms, which the government promulgated without consulting the workers’ unions.

The five representations will see the prime minister, without a specific agenda. It is part of the reconciliation process that the government wants to initiate, in a country tense by the social, economic and political crisis, violence and intolerance.

The beating of the nephew of the first lady Brigitte Macron in Amiens, after finishing the interview with the president on TF1, alerts to a violence that is growing, together with the dangerous hatred against Macron and the action of the extreme right, in France.



Union leaders and the premier Elisabeth Borne. AFP photo

The pension reform has been enacted by the government but there is a possibility to repeal it in parliament. The LIOT group has proposed its repeal, because it was not voted on, and it will be dealt with on June 8. It still occupies everyone’s minds and could put unionists “in a position of strength” in negotiations.

meeting without agenda

The prime minister, regularly harassed by groups of opponents of the reform, said that is “listening to priorities” unions and employers’ organizations.

Borne met at the end of the afternoon with FO and the CFDT, the moderate central that Laurent Berger still leads. Then, on Wednesday morning, with the CFE-CGC and the CFTC, before the CGT in the afternoon, he announced that he is not going to debate but to negotiate.

These meetings are part of the road map, which Emmanuel Macron entrusted to Elizabeth Borne to relaunch the government after the pension crisis.

The general secretary of Fuerza Obrera, Frédéric Souillot, was the first union leader to meet Elisabeth Borne this Tuesday, at the end of the day. He did not hide his skepticism at the end of his meeting with the head of government: “I hope she listens to us because when she left she told us that she had told us that she was not going to withdraw this reform. We were frank and direct about it,” each side of the table. “We open the dance but we don’t dance”described.

The FO representative recalled that the first demand was still the withdrawal of the pension reform: “We made proposals and this time we gave them to the Prime Minister and explained them to her.”

We talked about a second point: the increase in salaries, pensions and social minimums because inflation continues and the priority of the workers is to maintain their purchasing power”, he said.

The inter-union reiterated this Monday, in a press release, its “determined” opposition to the reform, against which it is organizing the 14th day of strike and demonstrations on June 6, two days before the examination of a bill from the group LIOT intended for its repeal.

Unions Members are invited to vote by her, to “respect the will of the population expressed en masse since January”.

the repeal

LIOT’s parliamentary text is the subject of intense reflection by majority groups, who weigh in particular the argument of the “financial inadmissibility”in reference to the constitutional norm that establishes that a proposal from parliamentarians cannot degrade public finances.

Borne met on Sunday in Matignon to discuss with the Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem groups, with the president of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet. Several ministers and majority leaders also spoke about it at the Elysee on Monday morning, according to a participant. The Majority Intergroup will unveil its strategy on Tuesday.

After the forced adoption of the pension reform, which fueled the protests on May 1st, the unions they come with a bag full of demands and could up the ante.

In the context of inflation, the unions hear mainly about salaries, and they will repeat that they consider the degradation of unemployment benefits or the conditionality of access to the RSA (minimum income for people without resources) “unfair and brutal”, whose beneficiaries could be subject to sanctions.

All unions demand that public aid to companies be “conditional” to social objectives, such as wage increases, and environmental ones.

The union leader Frederic Souillot.  Photo EFE


The union leader Frederic Souillot. Photo EFE

The CFDT will request suspension of listing exemptions for branches that have minimum wages below the minimum wage. The CGT, which in the words of its number 1, the new leader Sophie Binet, is going to “demand”, “negotiate, not discuss”, wants for its part an indexation of wages to rising prices.

The employers’ organizations, which will be received next week, would have preferred independent negotiations with the unions, before seeing the government. The Medef, which brings together the captains of industry, regularly highlights their agreement on shared value.

“We will continue to say that the page has not been turned.” In addition to the employment of the elderly or hard work, many issues questioned by the reform of the Constitutional Council, the Prime Minister intends to build a “social agenda” with the social partners for a “new pact for life at work”, they said .

A bill, “which will incorporate the result of negotiations” between unions and employers, should be submitted by the end of the year or early 2024, according to Matignon.

But despite the resumption of dialogue, “distrust will continue to run extremely deep“warned Sophie Binet, for whom “there will be no return to normality if this pension reform is not abandoned”.

“We will continue to say that the page is not being turned” on pensions. But “we cannot stop talking about inflation, purchasing power,” explained the president of the CFTC Cyril Chabanier, who believes that the unions are “in a position of strength Thanks to the social movement.

“Everything will cost more”, adds Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT, who will also have demands regarding the method. “What is the co-construction you intend to enter into?” he asked.

This Tuesday, the CFDT moves the ball for bilateral meetings between the unions and Elisabeth Borne. “First we are going to talk to him about pensions, telling him that there is a new repeal in the National Assembly and that this process must be allowed to take place.”

Then “We are going to tell you what you have to repair” what she has “damaged a little in the world of work”, declared Laurent Berger, questioned in the France 2 study about his arrival in Matignon.

When asked about Emmanuel Macron’s interview on Monday night on TF1 and his promises of household tax cuts by 2027, Laurent Berger indicated that he “did not applaud”.

“A tax cut does not make a social policy. It does not raise wages. It does not make an improvement in working conditions,” he said. He stressed that these cuts were also “extremely vague.”

Julien Bayou (EELV), Éric Coquerel (LFI) and André Chassaigne (PCF) challenged Élisabeth Borne to be late.

“The 100 Days of Appeasement” of Emmanuel Macron are “no more than a provocation” for the communist deputy André Chassaigne.

“Stop making people believe that the extreme right is the only alternative to your politics,” said the representative-elect from Puy-de-Dôme.

Macron set the goal of “100 days of appeasement”, after the express promulgation of the pension reform. The response on the street has been a chain of pot-blows.

Left-wing parliamentarians have not planned “Turn the page on pension reform”despite the media activism of Emmanuel Macron.

PB

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#Inflation #wages #pension #reform #confront #unions #Macron #government

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