At the end of an express negotiation begun on October 22 at the request of the government on the rules of unemployment insurance and the employment of seniors, the five representative trade union organizations and the three employers’ organizations reached, during the last session of the Thursday, November 14, to a draft national inter-professional agreement (ANI) “in favor of the employment of experienced employees”, according to the official wording.
The negotiations, led for the CFE-CGC by Jean-François Foucard, national confederal secretary for professional careers, also resulted in a draft agreement concerning unemployment insurance. The text takes the form of an amendment to the agreement of November 10, 2023, not signed at the time by the CFE-CGC, and notably provides for a reduction in employer contributions and a modification of the calculation of compensation for workers border crossers. Due to the continued degression of allocations, the CFE-CGC immediately indicated that it would not sign this new agreement.
Regarding the employment of seniors, the CFE-CGC will bring together its bodies this Wednesday, November 20 to position itself. As a reminder, the negotiation focused on four major themes: the organization of social dialogue in professional branches and companies; mid-career interviews; the return to employment of senior job seekers; end-of-career arrangements (part-time work and gradual retirement).
TERMS OF SOCIAL DIALOGUE, PROGRESSIVE RETIREMENT, PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEWS AND EXPERIENCE VALORIZATION CONTRACT
The final text provides for several provisions, of which here are the main ones.
- The employment of seniors becomes a compulsory subject of negotiation (every 3 years) in professional sectors and in companies with more than 300 employees to deal, among other things, with recruitment, end-of-career arrangements, transfer knowledge, health at work, etc. “Companies whose workforce does not reach this threshold can voluntarily enter into negotiations on this topic,” specifies the text.
- The progressive retirement system becomes accessible again from the age of 60 (and no longer follows the evolution of the pension reform, i.e. a reduction of 3 months per year until reaching the threshold of 62 years), as soon as the employee meets the conditions in force on the date of promulgation of the law transposing this agreement. The employer can refuse the employee access to the system but the justification must be “written and reasoned”.
- The professional interview carried out in the year preceding or following the employee’s 45th birthday is reinforced. Furthermore, another professional interview is planned in the two years preceding the employee’s 60th birthday to address the conditions of continued employment, end-of-career arrangements, etc.
- At the request of the employer’s party, the text provides for the creation of an “experience enhancement contract”, a senior permanent contract on an experimental basis for a period of 5 years, open to job seekers aged 60 and over registered with France Travail (the threshold can be lowered to 57 years by sector agreement). When signing the contract, the jobseeker gives the employer the document sent by the retirement insurance company mentioning the expected date of obtaining the conditions for full-rate liquidation.
UNION PROGRAMS AND END OF THE 3-TERM LIMITATION FOR CSE ELECTED OFFICIALS
Finally, note that the social partners have also reached an agreement aimed at opening discussions on union paths and asking the government to legislate to put an end to the limit of three mandates for staff representatives within the social and economic committees (CSE ) in business.
THE ANALYSIS OF JEAN-FRANÇOIS FOUCARD, CFE-CGC NATIONAL SECRETARY FOR PROFESSIONAL PATHS
“This is clearly a political agreement. The agreement in favor of the employment of experienced employees is part of a medium-term time frame. Indeed, it will take several years of implementation for business practices to evolve with the proposed measures. The CFE-CGC regrets that the negotiations could not result in a notion of opposability to progressive retirement in order to change the scale of this system (less than 2% of use today), and thus allow an increase of the activity rate of experienced employees by drastically limiting non-employed people in this age group (“neither employed nor retired”; NER). In addition, the CFE-CGC is convinced that it is necessary to develop flexibility in the duration of manual work for employees so that they can cope with the vagaries of life to which they are victims. »
“This agreement is much less ambitious than what was imagined in 2023 with the agreement on the “Pact for life at work” in return for the agreement on unemployment insurance. But in the fall of 2024, the main thing was to obtain an agreement which contains progress, even modest, to validate the unemployment agreement on the “Dussopt” bases. This allows the social partners to regain control of the State on this last subject for at least 4 years, and therefore not to undergo the much harsher modifications provided for by the “Attal” decree. »
Mathieu Bahuet
Business
