Employers and at least two unions, the CFDT and the CFTC, finally reached an agreement on unemployment insurance this Friday, November 10, after difficult discussions on compensation rules from January 2024. “After nine negotiation sessions and despite the requirements of the framework document (Editor’s note: from the government upstream), an agreement was reached,” welcomed the representative of Medef, Hubert Mongon.
Just before, the CFDT negotiator, Olivier Guivarch, had expressed a “positive opinion” from his delegation, which will still have to be endorsed by the national office of the organization on November 16. “We used every avenue we could develop,” he added. “We are ready to sign it, now it still needs to be approved” by the government, said Eric Courpotin of the CFTC. FO said it was awaiting the decision from its confederal office on Monday, while noting that “the red lines have fallen”, according to negotiator Michel Beaugas.
The government will “study” the compatibility of the agreement drawn up by the social partners with the objectives it had set for them in its framework letter, indicated for its part the Ministry of Labor. For Medef, this agreement is “perfectly consistent” with the framework document and results in a balance between new expenditure and revenue. Two unions, the CGT and the CFE-CGC, have indicated that they will not be among the signatories.
“For us the balance is not there”, even if “the employers have withdrawn most of their provocations”, indicated Denis Gravouil (CGT). The CFE-CGC had left the discussion table in the evening. Its negotiator, Jean-François Foucard, denounced the maintenance of the reduction in benefits for high incomes, a red line for him.
Under the agreement reached, job seekers who register for the first time will be able to be compensated after five months of work in the last 24 months, instead of six months currently. “A concrete and fair measure”, for the CFDT, even if the unions initially wanted to return to four months. The changes to the conditions of compensation for seniors following the pension reform, which the government wanted to see included in the agreement, were postponed to a negotiation on the employment of seniors, despite the initial desire of the employers’ organizations of include them.
“Status quo” for intermittent workers
The bosses, who wanted to lower their unemployment insurance contributions from 4.05% to 3.95%, also accepted a reduction half as large, of 0.05%. The text also reduces the scope of the bonus-malus system, a system criticized by employers, which increases the contributions of bosses who use short contracts more than the average.
The government had given the social partners until November 15 to conclude, otherwise it would have regained control. He had already narrowly framed the debates in a document sent at the beginning of August: 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 depending on the labor market situation and reduced the duration of compensation by 25%.
Several negotiators, on the union side, complained of a form of “guardianship” and “parasite” from the government on the discussions. “We have reached the end of a hybrid system” with this interventionism, also judged the boss of Medef. Additional financial complexity, the executive has planned additional draws on unemployment insurance revenues to finance support and training measures for the unemployed. These 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 entertainment workers came up in the discussions. The employers initially wanted to toughen their compensation conditions, despite the agreement reached by representatives of the sector and opposition from the unions. Ultimately, it is the status quo that prevails, i.e. maintaining the current rules, but without the improvements negotiated by the sector.