While the government presented a new unemployment insurance reform on Monday, employee organizations fear being relegated to a subordinate position, faced with a state that has become almost omnipotent.
by Thibaud Métais and Bertrand Bissuel
Will the social partners stay in the passenger headquarters or resume the wheel? While the government presented, Monday, November 21, a new unemployment insurance reform, the unions are wondering about the room for maneuver – increasingly limited – which they hold, with employers, within these measures. They fear being relegated to a subordinate position, facing the state which has become almost omnipotent.
In ordinary times, employers and employees organizations set the compensation parameters for the unemployed, within the framework of agreements concluded after negotiations between them. It is also up to them to administer the system, through an association: Unédic. This is called “management paritarism”. The executive has, certainly, always occupied a place as important as it is discreet: for the conventions to apply, the Ministry of Labor must give its approval, which allows it to “control its content and if necessary play the balance of power “, decrypts Jean-Pascal Higelé, sociologist at the University of Lorraine. In addition, the public authorities provide their financial guarantee to the Unédic when it borrows money to make up for deficits.
But the state has accentuated its grip in recent years. In 2019, he hardened the conditions of access to the regime while modifying the rules for calculating the allowance, with a decrease in the monthly amount paid to certain unemployed. In addition, a law promulgated in September 2018 requires the social partners to follow a framing letter when they discuss the content of an agreement. 2> “We go from paritarism to tripartism”
The reform unveiled on Monday by Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor, extends this background movement. Realizing a campaign promise by Emmanuel Macron, it will notably have the effect of reducing the compensation duration of job seekers by 25 % whose employment contract ended from 1
The Minister also indicated that the unions and the employers will open, at the end of 2023, negotiations about compensation methods: they “wish to find their prerogatives, which we share,” he added. But the protagonists will have to comply with the principle of modulation, now listed in the law, which varies the duration of payment of the allowance according to the economic situation. Mr. Dussopt even mentioned scenarios with even stricter parameters in the event that the unemployment rate drops to “4.5 % or 5 %” (against 7.3 % today).
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