New day of action against the pension reform, while at the same time the joint joint committee meets, Wednesday, March 15, at the Bourbon palace, with the aim of finding a consensus on the text.
From the first announcements made by Elisabeth Borne in January, strike movements and demonstrations brought together more than a million people across the country. Should we see in this protest the symptom of a French society resistant to change, which tramples the value of work under its feet and loudly claims its right to laziness, as some people think?
Pensions and QVT: two closely related subjects
This reading is not that of the Cevipof researchers, who published on March 15 the fourteenth wave of the barometer of political confidence produced by OpinionWay. This survey tells us, among other things, that work still occupies an important place in the lives of 72% of French people, especially among young people, 79% of whom give it a central role in their daily lives.
Rather than speaking of a lack of love for work, the researchers observe that “if the government’s pension reform project is so badly accepted by two-thirds of French respondents (and almost three-quarters of working people alone), it is because their work experience is negative and retirement constitutes, for them eyes, the only remaining reward”. (Le Monde, March 15, 2023).
Data that confirms us, just like the slogans on the signs of the processions of demonstrators (“The prisoners of work will not make old bones”, “For the right to free time”…), that debate on pension reform and reflection on the quality of life at work and the meaning of work are closely linked. “Opposition to pension reform is catalysing an older and deeper malaise about the place of work in society, deciphers sociologist Hugo Touzet, member of the Critical Quantity collective, interviewed by France 24. The need for meaning and reorganization of work does not only concern executives or young people, but the whole of society. It is no longer a question of working for the sake of working, but of asking why, and how, we work. »
For a better employee experience
While 37% of employees surveyed by Dares say they will not be able to do the same job until retirement, how can these jobs be made not only bearable but desirable over time?
Here again, the Cevipof barometer is rich in lessons: it teaches us that for 54% of French people, a good job is one that allows them to flourish personally. A much higher ratio than our German (41%), British (31%) or Italian (45%) neighbors.
Before remuneration, employees in France attach importance to the fact that their professional activity serves a purpose, to be considered, to benefit from real autonomy and to see their work recognized. It is on this last point that the margin for improvement for employers is undoubtedly the strongest, since only 42% of workers believe that they are compensated to the fair extent of the efforts made.
