visit of the Pole emploi agency.FRANCE-10/07/2020 // MERESSELOUISE_1.1290 / 2007101734 / Credit: DICOM / Louise MERESSE / SIPA / 2007101736 -

Social

ministries

/ DICOM / Louise MERESSE / SIPA

  • The unemployment insurance reform is put on hold until at least April 1.

  • The unions are calling for its outright withdrawal in view of the crisis.

  • A new round of meetings is planned before the end of the month.

Postponed, but not yet buried.

The unemployment insurance reform, which began at the end of 2019, was stopped in its tracks by the coronavirus.

Faced with the scale of the crisis, the government has already postponed its application twice, first to January 1, then to April 1, 2021. Will this schedule be kept?

Even if the Elysee Palace, requested by

20 Minutes

, did not respond on this specific point, the subject should be on the menu of the government seminar on Wednesday.

Emmanuel Macron must indeed address the agenda for the next six months, and unemployment insurance is one of them.

Even though Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Labor, said at the beginning of January that it was "a priority to carry out this reform", a lot has changed since its presentation two years ago.

Which could push the executive to review its plans.

The original project

Originally, several upheavals were planned for the unemployed.

First, an extension of the minimum working time (from 4 to 6 months) to claim unemployment benefit.

Then, the method of calculating this allowance had to change: it was based on a "monthly average" including periods of work and inactivity.

In other words, some beneficiaries would have had longer compensation periods, but with much less money at the end of the month, as we explained to you in a previous article.

Finally, the project also provided for a degression of allowances for the highest incomes, as well as a bonus-malus system on short contracts, in order to penalize companies that abuse fixed-term contracts.

In total, the reform was expected to save around 3.6 billion euros per year.

Unions still opposed to reform

It was all before.

Before the pandemic of course - we will come back to this - but especially before the decision of the Council of State in November.

Seized by the unions and the employers, he considered that the new method of calculating allowances constituted an attack on the “principle of equality” between recipients.

The "permittents", these employees who alternate unemployment and fixed-term contracts, would thus have been particularly penalized.

It is therefore a central point of the reform which was canceled even before being applied, just like the bonus-malus, retoked for a question of form.

For the executive, it will therefore be necessary to review a whole part of the reform before applying it.

Discussions will take place again with the social partners before the end of the month, in order to find a "path" with them, in the words of Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Labor.

But on the union side, we are not very keen on discussing again on the same bases as last year.

The latter had already requested, in unison, the abandonment of the reform last October, whether it is the CGT, the CFDT, via FO.

And it hasn't changed.

The government keeps control

“We still think that this reform is not necessary, explains to

20 Minutes

Cyril Chabanier, president of the CFTC.

Despite the Council of State and the pandemic, the government wants to keep the overall philosophy ”.

A danger according to him: "The reform of unemployment insurance was imagined in an economic context of growth, with the idea that job seekers would then take less time to find a job".

But with the sharp increase in unemployment expected in 2021 and sectors still at a standstill, the reasoning no longer holds, according to him.

Like the other unions, the CFTC will still go to the negotiating table to try to influence the reform as much as possible.

The question of taking into account days not worked could be the subject of a compromise, for example by limiting their scope in the calculation of allowances: “We ask that only 25% to 30% of days not worked for a given period are counted ”indicates Cyril Chabanier.

This would allow the amount received by the unemployed to be raised a little.

But in the end, it is the government which will decide, by decree, which will allow it to avoid a possible debate in Parliament.

It remains to be seen when.

Economy

Unemployment insurance: 1.2 million people affected by the current reform

Economy

Unemployment insurance: The application of the reform again postponed by three months

  • Unemployment insurance

  • Economy

  • Coronavirus

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Unemployment