Berger (CFDT) judges incentives to work more after confinement “unworthy”
CFDT number 1, Laurent Berger, judged “unworthy” and “indecent” Sunday calls made by Medef and within the government to work more to offset the harmful effects of the containment on the economy.
“It is totally indecent. Today workers, like everyone else, are paying the cost of this crisis. It is not their job to pay next”, he said on France 2, referring to “slogans that are launched today, old moons coming back: ‘it will take more work’, ‘it will take sweat and tears’, etc.”. “Since we want to talk about the rest, we better talk about deconfinement protocol, the way we are going to deconfine, including in companies”, he added.
For the boss of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, “sooner or later we will have to ask the question of working time, public holidays and paid vacation to accompany the economic recovery and facilitate, by working a little more, the creation of additional growth”.
The Secretary of State for the Economy, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, abounded, warning that it would be necessary “probably work more than we did before” for “catch up” loss of activity. Mr. Berger mentioned “an unworthy controversy” and an “big mistake”. For him, “What is in question is not just the economic question, even if it is primordial and it concerns me a lot, it is also the question of social cohesion”.
Asked about the possible “set apart” of the pension reform, which provoked weeks of mobilization in France this winter, the secretary general of the CFDT, who was in favor, acknowledged that“after this episode, which we did not leave, we will have many other cats to whip than to put on the face on this subject”. “Our social protection systems will be severely tested (…) so we will have to focus, I believe, (…) on many other problems so as not to add to them”. “We will see if we come back to it in the years to come”, he decided.
He also reiterated his plea that the unemployment insurance reform – part of which has been in place since November 1 and another has been postponed until September -, “Not Applicable” at all because it is today “totally offbeat” while unemployment may increase after confinement.
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