The bill extending the current rules of unemployment insurance beyond November 1 will pass to the Council of Ministers next week, said Tuesday the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, who will immediately seize the social partners of a request consultation on compensation reform.
First text on the menu of Parliament at the beginning of October, this bill plans to extend until the end of 2023 the current unemployment insurance agreement, resulting from the 2019 reform – applied due to the Covid and legal remedies since the fall of 2021 – which expires on 1 November. But this text also paves the way for the future reform desired by the executive.
“This delay will make it possible to initiate the necessary consultations on the rules of compensation and on governance, the current organization of which no longer corresponds to the desired balance between the social partners, the State, Unédic and Pôle emploi”, underlines the bill, consulted by AFP.
The social partners seized in stride
“The bill will be presented to the Council of Ministers” and “we will seize the social partners immediately afterwards”, declared Olivier Dussopt before the Medef summer school. In particular, the government wants to modulate the compensation rules according to the employment situation.
“We are convinced that incentive rules must be put in place, it is quite unacceptable and even unbearable to still have an unemployment rate of 7.4% and to have at the same time a unanimous return from the heads of companies on recruitment difficulties”, repeated Mr. Dussopt. According to him, “the question of the level of compensation is not necessarily the right one, it is rather the criteria for access to compensation at the full rate and the duration of compensation at the full rate which can be the keys of discussing “.
The Medef convinced of a failure
“This issue of criteria, we want the social partners to take up,” he added. If they are all opposed to this modulation of the rules, the unions are nevertheless in favor of social negotiation if the State leaves them real room for manoeuvre.
“Give us back your hand as quickly as possible,” said the general secretary of Force Ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot, who took part in the meeting. It remains to be seen whether a negotiation will ultimately take place because the Medef, in favor of changing the compensation rules according to the economic situation, has already said it is convinced of its failure.
“Opening a negotiation will be useless since it will not succeed for lack of diagnosis shared with the unions on the effect of the rules of compensation on the resumption of employment. It is legitimate for the state to regain control, ”said its president, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, on Monday.