The law on purchasing power currently being examined in the National Assembly, which sometimes turns into a rat race between the deputies, measures nevertheless manage to emerge. Even if the debates dragged on, the third article, which mainly aims to promote profit-sharing (bonuses linked to company results) in small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, was voted on at first reading, by 288 votes against 90. .
Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt praised a “simplification” and “facilitation” mechanism for “value sharing” within the company. Profit-sharing is “still very little implemented” in companies with fewer than 50 employees, underlined LREM MP Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet.
An incentive bonus made easier for small businesses
Concretely, this article allows a system of profit-sharing on “unilateral decision” of the heads of these small companies in the absence of institutions representing the personnel or in the event of failure of the negotiations, when the company is not covered by an approved branch agreement providing for a profit-sharing scheme. The text also proposes more generally to extend the duration of profit-sharing agreements from three to five years.
LFI, environmentalist and communist deputies rejected the article en bloc, demanding salary increases rather than bonuses. “It’s a complete decoy”, a “subterfuge offered to the bosses to once again avoid any real salary increase”, pointed out the LFI Aurélie Trouvou.
VIDEO. Purchasing power: what the government bill contains
At Horizons, also in the presidential majority, Vincent Thiébaut criticized the left-wing coalition Nupes for its “total ignorance of the business world”. “We know the business world, but unlike you, we talk more with employees than with bosses,” retorted the rebel Antoine Léaument.
A few spades punctuated the end of the evening, including a reminder of the rules of the RN Jean-Philippe Tanguy accusing the LREM rapporteur Charlotte Parmentier Lecocq of “incompetence” and lack of listening. The latter immediately denounced the “boorishness” of this deputy.
Previously, the deputies had already adopted the continuation of the “Macron bonus”, an exceptional tax-free and desocialized bonus. Thus, employers will be able to pay until December 31, 2023 an exceptional bonus of a maximum amount of 3,000 euros (or 6,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement), exempt from income tax and contributions and social contributions, for employees whose income is equivalent to less than three times the value of the minimum wage.
The termination of subscriptions on the internet are unanimous
In this atmosphere, certain subjects manage to achieve unanimity. This concerns articles to facilitate the termination of subscriptions taken out online. The first of these articles must make it possible “to easily terminate a contract concluded electronically”, that is to say on the internet and on a mobile application, “in order not to keep it captive of an economic operator”. Article 8 of the text aims to oblige those offering the subscription of insurance contracts electronically, to provide for termination “according to this same method in an easy, direct and permanent way”. A measure that the government, insisting on the emergency nature of the text of the law, hopes to bring into force no later than February 1, 2023.
There are still 389 amendments to consider on this bill at the close of the session Tuesday at midnight.