Elected on January 17, Hugues Vidor’s successor aims to confirm to the Union of Social and Solidarity Economy Employers its dominant position in the ESS sector and continues to expand its representativeness. Up to the interprofessional field?
The rumor of his election was already rustling on October 17, on the occasion of the anniversary conference of the 30th anniversary of Udes. While Hugues Vidor, after ten years spent as president of the Union of Employers of the Social and Solidarity Economy, had just announced that he would not return to the head of the organization, the name of David Cluzeau as successor was already starting to circulate in the corridors.
On January 17, the board of directors of the employers’ organization, which brings together 17 professional branches, 220,000 associative, mutualist or cooperative employers and 2.6 million employees, confirmed the rumors by electing him to the next three years as president of the confederation. Hugues Vidor, for his part, was appointed as honorary president.
Linchpin
For David Cluzeau, it is the culmination of a commitment that began in 2003, when this double graduate of a course in business law and educational sciences joined the federation of secular works of Nièvre as director general. He then joined the Education League in 2009, where he was successively general director for Burgundy (2009 – 2015), then director of programs at the national level (2015 to 2016).
Administrator of Udes since 2015, he also chairs its social affairs committee. In this context, it will be required to conclude several agreements with the social partners in the social and solidarity economy sector, in particular on gender equality (November 27, 2015), the employment of people with disabilities (9 January 2019) or on the impact of digital technology on employment and working conditions (October 6, 2021). He will also be at the forefront of the negotiations on “well-being at work” that the social partners of the ESS are currently leading.
This experience of joint work at the multi-professional level also allows him to lead the transversal ESS working group (GDS) which oversees the 12 social dialogue spaces in the field of the social and solidarity economy.
>>> A lire : “We hope to achieve a particularly ambitious framework agreement for the ESS” (Udes)
Linchpin of the ESS sector, David Cluzeau has served as general delegate of Hexopée (the federation of employers in social work and popular education) since 2016 and of Synofdès (the union of training organizations in non-profit) since 2020. As part of his mandates at Udes, he chairs the boards of directors of Uniformation, the skills operator (Opco) in the field of Social Cohesion and Solidarity and Milestones for Work (SJT), a training organization in the field of ESS. He also serves as vice-president of the ESS division of AG2R la Mondiale.
-Agenda
In his profession of faith, that ASH were able to consult, the new president has set the course for his organization for the coming years, aiming to offer it, as well as the ESS in general, a better place both in the economic ecosystem and in social dialogue . As such, Udes perceives in the appointment of a minister of ESS attached to Bercy, in the Bayrou government, a sign of recognition of the sector by the public authorities. But the absence of a budgetary project for 2025, in a sector so dependent on public funding, combined with the fact of having been initially forgotten in the invitations to the “conclave” on pensions on January 20, is already making people cringe…
This last hiccup has since been repaired, but for Udes, it is a confirmation of this ambition of better anchoring both in the field of the ESS, but also in the employer sphere in general.
>>> A lire : PLF 2025: the Union of ESS Employers calls for a “budgetary orange”
A permanent seat at the ESS France office
The challenge is therefore twofold. And to meet it, David Cluzeau has planned a program in several acts. Firstly, in addition to the creation of an ESS Observatory in charge of analyzing the employment situation in the sector, Udes plans to clarify its position in relation to that of ESS France, the structure representing the social and solidarity economy chaired by Benoît Hamon.
If the two organizations are linked, the project displayed by the new governance of Udes plans to reaffirm its place in the management of ESS France, through a permanent seat in the latter’s office. A way, in particular, to fight against “desires of others [organisations] to compete with the representativeness of the ESS”. Between the lines, it is above all a question of countering the maneuvers of the Impact France Movement and its creator, Pascal Demurger, director of the MAIF, aiming to create a representative professional federation bringing together all the companies involved in ecological and social development. , whether they relate to the social and solidarity economy or not…
Showing l’interpro
This search for representativeness is precisely the other project on David Cluzeau’s agenda. “To have greater influence in the employers’ landscape, it is essential that UDES maintains frameworks for work and exchange with other organizations representing employers. This requires regular collaboration with major confederations such as MEDEF, CPME, and U2P. I am committed to asserting our place in this network, to promoting our specificity while demonstrating that we are a complementary and essential employer force in social dialogue”promises the new president of Udes.
With a method: get more involved with major power plants, upstream of inter-professional negotiations, to make the voice of the ESS heard – Udes was also able to do this during the negotiation on value sharing of November 2024, so as not to exclude associative, cooperative and mutual employers – and, in the medium term, “gain the ground for a possible opening towards the interprofessional”. An ambition which could initially involve increased representation of ESS employers in joint bodies such as the CNAF, CNAV, CNAM, CNSA or Unédic…
