2023-08-01 19:56:44
The government’s framework document concerning the negotiation on unemployment insurance arrived this Tuesday at the end of the morning in the mailbox of the social partners. It was all the more expected that after a first half marked by a historic conflict over pension reform, it is supposed to mark the start of a new social sequence in the five-year term.
On July 12, bringing together employer and union leaders in Matignon, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, affirmed the executive’s desire to turn the page and restore an important place to social dialogue. Unemployment insurance, which has been taken over by the state since 2019, is the first file to be opened since.
Two ways to read the text
There are therefore two ways of reading the text transmitted which sets the framework for the renegotiation of the agreement for the period 2024-2026. The first is to point out the continuities with the previous reforms carried out with a firm hand by the executive, and there are many of them. The second is to seek, within this constrained framework, the overtures made to employers and, above all, to unions.
The main observation is that of the absence of a reversal on the merits. The specifications transmitted clearly affirm the obligation to remain within the blueprint drawn by the government in recent years. This is particularly the case with the principle of countercyclicality of compensation rules, tightened when the employment situation eases and relaxed in the opposite case, the framework document of which excludes any questioning.
Stay in the blueprint of the government
If a symbol was needed, the coincidences of the calendar gave it on Tuesday since this August 1, the first jobseekers registered after the 25% shortening of the maximum compensation periods saw their compensation cease.
The framework document is just as rigid regarding the method of calculating the daily reference salary (SJR), which serves as the basis for compensation, tightened in 2019 but came into force after the Covid. The document calls for ensuring that its method of calculation “does not create a more favorable incentive than the current regime” for the alternation of short contracts and periods of unemployment.
Seniors, a sensitive subject for unions
The avenues for changing the compensation parameters cited in the government’s letter remain sensitive for the unions. Thus, the text invites the social partners to “draw the consequences of the extension of the duration of activity on the rules of compensation for seniors”. In the line of fire: the rule according to which a jobseeker remains compensated by Pôle emploi beyond the legal age until he has acquired all his quarters of contribution.
The letter also encloses the negotiation within a strict financial framework. While Unédic, which manages unemployment insurance, forecasts record surpluses, the executive affirms its intention in parallel with the deleveraging of the scheme, also considered a priority, to pre-empt a significant part of it to finance the unemployment policy. employment, with not only an increase in Unédic’s contribution to the operation of the public employment service within the framework of the future France travail, but also the establishment of a new contribution targeted at apprenticeship. In total, the puncture would reach more than 11 billion euros.
Trading margins
But if the space is very constrained, that does not mean that there is nothing to negotiate. “There is still room for maneuver to improve the ordinary of the unemployed”, considers an employer official who underlines that on the financial level, “the final version of the framework document is much less frontal. The executive wanted to use the majority of the surpluses for funding employment policies initially, according to a source.
The angry words have been removed, such as this reference to degressivity for executives, which has given way to the objective of “correcting the effective differences in incentives to return to work according to the level of remuneration”. And some doors have been opened, including the possibility of relaxing the minimum duration of activity requirements, which have been increased from four to six months in the twenty-four months.
Added to this is the very political issue of a takeover of the unemployment insurance scheme by the social partners. There are the ingredients if not the conclusion of an agreement, in any case for the opening of a negotiation in good and due form between employers and unions which should all respond present. After the summer break, there is no doubt that the subject will be at the center of discussions between the number one unions, who are to see each other on August 25 a priori. The social partners will have until November 15 to reach a conclusion.
#unemployment #insurance #rules #government #lists #requirements