Threats to employment: the government "does not get bogged down", worries Berger, from the CFDT - France 24

Paris (AFP)

CFDT secretary general Laurent Berger deplores the fact that the government "is not shunting" while his union is calling for "general mobilization on employment" and that the crisis promises to be severe, in an interview published Friday in The echoes.

"The CFDT has been calling for three weeks for a general mobilization on employment, and that is not getting worse on the government side. While what is coming, we have probably never known it in terms of employment and unemployment ... ", explains the number one of the CFDT.

For him, "no need to tinker with the Labor Code, the rules of social plans", while some argue for an extension of working hours or an adaptation of the rules.

"We must activate all the offensive levers as defensive", he argues, as "continue partial activity", "strengthen support for those who lose their jobs" but also "conduct job-creating projects like thermal renovation of housing ".

In addition, he describes as "a major advance" the creation of a fifth branch of the Social Security Fund for the loss of autonomy, "an old demand of the CFDT, even if this date must be advanced well before 2024" and " if the amount - 2.3 billion - is insufficient to say the least ".

The question of the salaries of those who, apart from caregivers, were "on the front line" during confinement, is "a compulsory crossing point", he also urges.

Furthermore, "it would only be fair to recognize automatically these workers as an occupational disease in the event of Covid-19, as well as caregivers," he argues.

The government has so far indicated that it will only recognize occupational illness for caregivers.

"Today, when an employee of a slaughterhouse becomes ill because he took risks while working, he sees his already low income cut. This unacceptable situation must be changed," protests Laurent Berger.

On the unemployment insurance reform - unanimously criticized by the unions -, while the government has indicated that it will discuss with the social partners to adapt the rules, Laurent Berger warns: "The prerequisite is clear: the government must renounce his reform. "

As he is asked if he "mourned" the pension reform, the CFDT being the only organization favorable to a universal point system, he replied: "The CFDT did not mourn the construction of 'a universal pension system, but it is not an emergency ".

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