Posted Feb 16 2023 at 10:36Updated Feb 16. 2023 at 17:34
The examination of the pension reform bill is not yet complete in the Assembly that the executive is already turning to the Senate. “The government wants this article to be restored during the Senate review,” government spokesman Olivier Véran said on Wednesday after the creation of a senior index in companies was rejected on Tuesday. evening at the Palais-Bourbon, in particular by the LR deputies.
However, the game is far from over for the government. Favorable to the postponement of the legal retirement age, the right-wing majority in the Senate is, on the other hand, very reserved on this index which would force companies to advertise a certain number of criteria (number of seniors employed , separation rate, training for seniors, etc.) under penalty of sanctions.
A “budget rider”
On the form, “there is always a problem of constitutionality of the measure”, estimates the leader of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau, who sees in it a “budgetary horseman” who would be challenged in fine by the Constitutional Council.
As the bill is a financial text, the measures contained therein must have an impact on the Social Security accounts for 2023. This is not easy for the senior index, even if a fine should be paid from of November by companies which would not have published an index to supply the accounts of the National Old-Age Insurance Fund (CNAV). Even if its opinion is not public, the Council of State considered the place of the senior index in the text to be legally fragile.
Basically, “we are not fans of the senior index”, explains Senator LR, René-Paul Savary, rapporteur for the pension reform. “Take the example of a company which has kept its seniors, it will have a good score, but one day it will have to renew its employees and, there, its index could deteriorate”, continues the one who had promoted a postponement the retirement age to 64 during the debate on the Social Security budget for 2023.
“The idea of a senior CDI”
Pending the text which will be transmitted to the Senate at the end of the debates in the Assembly, the senators have not yet set in stone the content of their proposals. However, “we are working on the idea of a senior CDI”, continues René-Paul Savary. This could be exempt from contributions, for example family contributions, to be sure that such a measure would have its place in a Social Security budget.
“We must take strong action to encourage the hiring of seniors”, also believes Senator Elisabeth Doineau (Centrist Union Group), general rapporteur for the Social Affairs Committee, also mentioning the possibility of a contract for seniors with reduced contributions.
“We will be more imaginative concerning the employment of seniors”, is content to declare Bruno Retailleau, without further details for the moment. “We are going to study what we can obtain additionally, without calling into question the financial balance of the reform”, insists for his part the vice-president LR of the Senate, Roger Karoutchi.
The Institut Montaigne advocates a contribution reduction mechanism targeted at the employment of young people and seniors, which would be financed by a proportional increase in the contributions of other employees.
The Senate’s Social Affairs Committee, which should take up the text in principle from February 28, has already heard union representatives. They were also skeptical about the effectiveness of a senior index. However, the CFDT was concerned about the signal sent by the rejection of the senior index to the National Assembly. The policy on the employment of seniors was already “not very ambitious in the initial project”, underlined the representative of the reformist union Yvan Ricordeau. “What are we going to end up with when we leave the Senate on this policy? Employers are opposed to the index.