Unions and Employers Still Negotiating Unemployment Insurance Agreement

Unions and employers were still seeking an agreement on unemployment insurance on Friday evening, but the CFE-CGC executives’ union has already left the discussion table.

“We are leaving, we will not be signatories,” launched CFE-CGC negotiator Jean-François Foucard, denouncing a “sham negotiation”.

The executives’ union had indicated that maintaining the degression of allowances for high incomes was a red line for it. This provision “will not go away”, affirmed Mr. Foucard.

According to him, an agreement could emerge between the employers and the CFDT, FO and the CFTC, but it could only come late at night.

The CGT had warned from the outset that it would not accept any reduction in rights for the unemployed. “We have not changed our minds,” union negotiator Denis Gravouil told AFP on Friday evening, without leaving the discussion table immediately.

At the start of the day, employers presented a new version, slightly amended compared to the day before, of the draft agreement on the rules for compensating the unemployed from 2024.

In this version, which still had to evolve, the text provides in particular that the degression only applies after eight months, instead of six, for employees aged 50 and over.

At the request of the unions, the text refers to a broader negotiation on the employment of seniors concerning the conditions of combining employment/benefit.

But the age limits from which compensation periods are longer remain increased by two years, a consequence of the pension reform.

The government, which gave the social partners until November 15 to reach an agreement, will take control if they do not reach a compromise during this final session.

The draft agreement provides for “adjusting certain compensation rules to better take into account the situation of the most vulnerable groups”. This includes lowering the minimum affiliation condition allowing entitlement to be granted, by dropping it from six to five months, or “adjusting the rules relating to degression”, by making it apply for those under 55 and not 57.

– “Passage route” –

A wish of employers, the project also provides for an employer contribution rate reduced to 3.95% of the payroll, in particular with the elimination of a temporary contribution of 0.05% imposed in 2017. The text also intends to “adjust” the bonus-malus system, a system criticized by employers which increases the contributions of bosses who use short contracts more than average.

The unions do not necessarily reject the principle of reducing employer contributions, but want improvements for the rights of the unemployed.

CFDT negotiator Olivier Guivarch noted Thursday when reading the first version that “really, it’s difficult” while assuring that his union was “always looking for a way through”.

“The more it advances, the narrower the passageway. It’s no longer a mouse hole, it’s a needle’s eye,” commented his FO counterpart Michel Beaugas.

The government narrowly framed the debates in a document sent at the beginning of August to the social partners: no return on the 2019 reform, which notably tightened the conditions of access to unemployment compensation, nor on that of 2023, which modulates the conditions of unemployment insurance according to the labor market situation and reduced the duration of compensation by 25%.

Additional financial complexity, the executive has planned additional draws on unemployment insurance revenue to finance support and training measures for the unemployed.

These levies pose “a double difficulty”, indicates the draft agreement, invoking “a question of principle” and in relation to Unédic’s debt reduction objectives.

The subject of intermittent entertainment workers came up in the discussions, with employers wanting to toughen their compensation conditions, despite the agreement reached by representatives of the sector.