The decoration has not changed. Same blond wooden cupboards, same large neatly arranged desk, same round table in a corner with its black chairs. Only a straw hat, an incongruous touch in this austere setting, as if abandoned on the windowsill, reveals that the master of the place has changed. Four months ago, Marylise Léon took Laurent Berger’s chair at the head of the CFDT, the first union in France. A change in continuity, as this handover had been prepared for a long time between the two of them. The forty-year-old grew up under Berger’s wing. Now she is alone in charge. She keeps her accounts up to date: 70,000 new registrations since the start of the year. During the months of July and August, it is even 43% more than last year at the same time. We will not know anything about all those who have not renewed their memberships. Heads change but the government’s acrimony towards the reformist union remains intact. The executive has not forgiven the extremism of Laurent Berger during the pension reform. And relations have hardly warmed up with Marylise Léon. Only one meeting with Emmanuel Macron, no contact with Alexis Kohler, the omnipotent secretary general of the Elysée. The last discussion with Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor, on the subject of Agirc-Arrco, ended in a refusal from the leader of the CFDT. Unemployment insurance, low wages, supplementary pension… Marylise Léon’s autumn baptism of fire.
“Five years after the yellow vest crisis, it’s the same… Only worse”
Five years. An eternity as the storms have followed one another. Covid crisis, war in Ukraine, surge in inflation, contraction in purchasing power, psychodrama of 49-3 with the increase in retirement age. In the fall of 2018, the roundabouts were on fire. The crisis of the yellow vests, a social anger not seen in decades, caused by the surge in gasoline prices and a poorly constructed carbon tax project. Today, fuel prices are at least as high. The state of health of the social body, according to the leader of the CFDT? “The same thing as before, but more fragile. The primary concern is obviously purchasing power. I don’t make a trip to France without meeting employees who talk to me about difficult ends of the month, not to mention those who sleep in their car. Either because they do not earn enough, or because they do not work enough with part-time, short and unstable contracts. However, with food inflation reaching 22% over two years and increasingly expensive constrained expenses are no longer acceptable. We hear this discourse within the company but also outside, among the associations with which we work and who point out the insufficiency of their resources in the face of exploding demands. Add a worsening of democratic distrust, with those disappointed by the great debate and the pension reform. Here we are, five years after the yellow vest crisis: the picture is still just as dark.”
What could be the spark of a new social anger? Housing, the new social bomb. With interest rates rising and property prices not decreasing, a majority of French people can no longer access property. The government is slow to act, even if it promises a future housing law. On the union side, the silence is deafening. “We witness the difficulties and we relay them. We act where we are present like the social and economic committees or Housing Action but we have few levers as a union organization to act on the housing shortage,” confesses the patroness of the Confederation.
The High Remuneration Council “must not be a simple registration chamber”
Obviously, the dramatic events in Israel and the terrorist attack in a high school in Arras overshadowed the meeting a little. For the first time since the end of spring and the vote on the pension reform, Elisabeth Borne brought together all the social partners on Monday October 16. A large social conference whose outlines were very defined: low salaries and minimum pay scales, equal pay for men and women. A way for Matignon to renew the dialogue. “If the intention was good, the result lacks ambition, tackles Marylise Léon. We had made very specific proposals on the elimination of exemptions from charges for companies in which salary increases are very largely insufficient compared to the “inflation or in sectors where the minimum wages in the scales are lower than the minimum wage. Nothing concrete has come out.”
Elisabeth Borne, however, has not completely closed the door. “This unthinking about the non-constraint of companies is beginning to crack. And symbolically, that’s already a lot.” For the rest, the social conference produced a string of declarations of intent, notably on the revision of the professional equality index. The only new idea: the creation of a High Remuneration Council. “The government finally recognizes that there is a problem with poor workers in France. But this body is only of interest if it replaces the group of experts on the minimum wage. Its composition will be interesting and we wish to be part of it to be able to influence part-time work and the proliferation of short contracts. If it is only a chamber for recording findings, and not a space for proposals, it will be of no use.” Matignon has been warned.
Agirc-Arrco: “I hope they drop the matter”
We thought the retirement file was buried, charred by the 49-3 used to adopt the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. And now he comes back through the back door of Agirc-Arrco, the supplementary pension plan for private sector employees. A little over 20 million contributors, 13 million pensioners and nearly 80 billion euros in pensions paid each year. A system managed by social partners and which displays juicy surpluses. Problem is, the executive plans to draw from the coffers of Agirc-Arrco between 900 million and 3 billion euros each year between now and 2030, to balance all pension plans. According to the government, Agirc-Arrco will directly benefit from the reform passed last spring: raising the retirement age means more contributors and fewer pensions to pay. That is to say a surplus of more than 1 billion euros in the coffers of Agirc-Arrco by 2026.
The social partners are up in arms, arguing that this money is used to finance the pensions of private sector employees and not to fill the deficits of the general system. “This project is reprehensible and the amount advanced is inconceivable. Besides, where does this figure come from? The government is absolutely not transparent about its assumptions. The CFDT was ready to make a gesture of nearly 400 million euros every year and an agreement with the employers had even been found. But when Olivier Dussopt spoke to me about 900 million for 2024, I told him that it would be nothing at all in these conditions”, annoys Marylise Léon, all slipping: “Faced with the opposition of all the social partners, including employers, I hope that they will drop the matter in the end.”
Unemployment insurance: “The last chance negotiation”
The social partners have until November 15 to renegotiate the new unemployment insurance rules. Without an agreement, the State will take control. However, the framing letter sent by the government and which sets the framework for the negotiation is extremely tight. “It’s always the same story. Here again, the government wants to take part of Unédic’s surpluses to the tune of 2.5 billion euros per year to create France Travail. I am not opposed to the principle if it “is for better support for the unemployed but once again, where does this figure come from? Furthermore, we are asked to negotiate the future conditions of compensation for the unemployed with very optimistic forecasts of a return to full employment – a rate unemployment of 4.5% or even 5% – where economists see unemployment rising. And above all, without touching on previous reforms such as the degression of benefits, the tightening of compensation conditions or the countercyclicality of the rules.
That being said, I think there is a way to reach an agreement with employers. We are obliged to do so because it is a last-chance negotiation.” Failure would be another step towards the end of paritarianism. “Attacks against joint management are not new. Certainly, promises of dialogue have been made recently, but what is the reality of the space that this government is prepared to give us? Above all, I note that with the loss of the presidential majority in the National Assembly, the executive has focused more on political agreements than on the strength of social democracy.”