Unemployment insurance: trade unions file appeals with the Council of State

Europe 1 with AFP 14:33 pm, March 24, 2023

Several trade unions announced on Friday the filing of appeals against the reform of unemployment insurance, which since February 1 has led to a reduction in the duration of compensation for all new job seekers. The reform, which aims to modulate the conditions of unemployment insurance according to the situation on the labour market, provides for a 25% reduction in the duration of compensation for all jobseekers who have opened rights since 1st February.

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An unemployed person who would have been entitled to, for example, 12 months' benefit under the old system is now entitled to only nine months. A minimum floor of six months is preserved. The first impacts are therefore expected from 1 August.

New remedies must arrive

In a statement, Unsa announced the first Friday that "faced with a new unfair and brutal reform targeting job seekers", the organization had "decided to seize the Council of State to obtain its cancellation".

Shortly after, the CGT, FSU and Solidaires announced that they were "attacking the unemployment insurance decree" published on 26 January, stating that "all trade unions are jointly filing appeals". According to the CGT, the CFDT and the CFTC must thus file a joint appeal, other appeals must emanate from FO and the CFE-CGC.

'An unfair, unjustified reform'

"If the government persists in forcibly passing its pension reform, we must not forget that it has used the same strategy, despite the unanimous opposition of all the trade unions to reform unemployment insurance," write the CGT, FSU and Solidaires, denouncing "an unfair, unjustified reform that breaks a little more the rights of the unemployed ".

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The previous controversial reform, launched in 2019 and fully entered into force at the end of 2021, had been delayed by two years due to Covid and union appeals to the Council of State. In particular, it has tightened the conditions of compensation for jobseekers, in particular those alternating periods of work and inactivity.