The social partners have succeeded in drafting a text, but how many will be there to approve it, after proofreading? On Friday 10 February, employers’ and employees’ organizations made public a draft national interprofessional agreement (ANI) on the “sharing of value within the company”. The result of a three-month negotiation sequenced in eleven plenary meetings, the document must still be submitted to the governing bodies of the stakeholders. If the employers, who held the pen, must affix its signature, questions remain on the side of the unions, three central out of five expressing reservations, even opposition.
The discussion between the protagonists was structured around a « document d’orientation » transmitted by the government. The aim was to contribute to the emergence of new ideas in favor of the remuneration of workers, after the adoption, in August 2022, of the law relating to the protection of purchasing power. Several guidelines have been drawn: “facilitate the development (…) value-sharing mechanisms, including employee share ownership”, but also profit-sharing and participation. The roadmap also insisted on the need to be imaginative for companies with less than 50 people, as relatively few of them provide for redistribution mechanisms in favor of their employees.
The exchanges were not a long calm river. “We were going a long way”, says Luc Mathieu, national secretary of the CFDT. Understood: employers were hardly inclined to want to twist the arm of business leaders, with regard to their remuneration policy. Another bone of contention: the unions would have liked to address the issue of wages, which the opposing camp did not want to hear about. The movements of employers have, moreover, sought to align downwards the social package rates – an employer’s contribution based on certain elements of remuneration. “It’s ‘no way’ for the CFDT”launched Laurent Berger, the number one of the ceded central.
“Effectiveness of social dialogue”
The negotiations led, Friday evening, to a draft ANI of 36 articles. In particular, it intends to impose negotiations on the professional branches in order to ” to provide “ companies with less than 50 people a system “optional participation”. Another innovation to note: companies with 11 to 49 people are required to set up a mechanism “legal value sharing” (profit-sharing, etc.) if they generate, for three consecutive years, a significant profit, at least equal to 1% of their turnover. Finally, in companies with at least 50 people, discussions must take place so as to “better take into account exceptional results” made in France. This measure, of course, echoes the debate on superprofits which has been thriving for several months and which has just been revived with the record surpluses of TotalEnergies (19 billion euros in 2022).
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