“It is a strong signal of maturity sent by the social partners. »This is how Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the president of the Medef, summed up the outcome of the negotiations on the sharing of value, in an interview with Figaro published Sunday February 12.
Since November, all the trade unions and employers have been discussing following a framework letter from the government asking them to work on improving the mechanisms for distributing wealth within companies.
For the time being, the project – on which the CGT remains very reserved – is still not signed, but the employers are very confident about the outcome of a majority agreement by February 22. State of play of the main advances…
♦ The buried employee dividend
It was a necessary clarification for the unions and the employers. Right from the preamble to the agreement, the social partners repeated their opposition to the concept of “employee dividend”, Emmanuel Macron’s campaign proposal. It is qualified there as an expression “unsuitable” et « source de confusions », that the signatories of the agreement “pledge not to support”. The proposals of the agreement focus instead on expanding and simplifying existing arrangements (profit-sharing, participation and value-sharing bonus).
♦ Obligation to set up a value sharing system for companies with 11 to 50 beneficiary employees
It was the workhorse of the unions: to open up more profit-sharing and participation schemes to employees of small businesses. In 2020, a survey by the statistical department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares) showed that only 20% of employees in companies with fewer than 50 employees benefited from a value-sharing scheme, compared to 88.5% in those of more than 1,000 people.
While the employers were initially totally opposed to a coercive measure for VSEs and SMEs, a compromise was finally found: obliging companies with 11 to 50 profitable employees – more precisely those in “net fiscal profit at least equal to 1% of turnover for three consecutive years” – to open up a system for sharing value for employees, whatever it may be. This obligation would enter into force on January 1, 2025.
♦ Encouragement to set up participation mechanisms for small businesses
If the unions did not obtain the obligation of sharing of the value for all the small companies, they will nevertheless have to look into the question. Indeed, the agreement provides that in each professional branch, employers’ and employees’ organizations must open before June 30, 2024. «a negotiation aiming to provide companies with less than 50 employees with an optional participation mechanism”.
Participation, a mechanism for redistributing profits within companies, is now compulsory in companies with more than 50 employees. Also this point of the agreement aims to encourage companies below this workforce to implement this system all the same, even if it means being able to “derogating from the participation reference formula”by allowing lower profit redistributions, according to the branch agreements signed.
♦ Enhanced value-sharing bonus
With its very advantageous taxation for companies, employers wanted the value-sharing bonus (formerly known as the Macron bonus) to be considered in the same way as profit-sharing and profit-sharing. In this way, beneficiary companies with 11 to 50 employees, obliged to create a profit sharing mechanism, will be able to use it.
The unions were opposed to it, fearing that this bonus would replace permanent wage increases. They finally settled on a compromise, agreeing that the value-sharing bonus could be paid twice. “within the ceiling” currently planned. That is €6,000 per year and per employee.
♦ A (symbolic) device for superprofits
It was a subject that was difficult to avoid given the rise in tension on the question of the superprofits of large groups, like the 19.1 billion euros in profits generated by TotalEnergies in 2022.
The agreement promises to “better take into account exceptional results” in companies with 50 or more employees. It would go through the “automatic payment of a profit-sharing or profit-sharing supplement”, or by opening new negotiations, but only if the results show “an exceptional character as defined by the employer”.
This part of the agreement remains above all symbolic, and it is a safe bet that the government will amend it the day it takes up the file to make it a bill in 2023, as the Minister of l Bruno Le Maire’s economy last fall.