Towards widespread teleworking? "It requires a cultural change"

INTERVIEW

This is a major project for the professional world in the years to come: will teleworking see its breakthrough made during the coronavirus crisis confirmed in the long term?

A first response will be given on Tuesday, with a final meeting of unions and employers to complete a "joint diagnosis".

If the employers do not want to renegotiate the existing texts, the unions want on the contrary to establish a new national agreement on this practice.

Getting out of the current "vagueness" "requires a cultural change", says on Europe 1 Laurent Mahieu, secretary general of the CFDT-Cadres.

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While "a number of companies have drawn the consequences of the period of total containment with renegotiations of agreements dating from the period 2005-2010", initiating the transition to generalized teleworking "requires reflection and sharing of the organizational constraints ", insists the union representative.

The objective is therefore to "find the right balance between face-to-face and distance".

Specific agreements by branch?

"Concretely, in all companies, there is no teleworking agreement today," laments Laurent Mahieu.

Negotiating a national agreement "would allow the branches to negotiate specific agreements and give the most precise possible framework so that companies can move forward on teleworking, in confidence with their employees," he insists.

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But this desire of the unions clashes with that of the employers, who reject for the time being a new national inter-professional agreement.

"There is no employer commitment, while the period requires renovating this framework so that we take into account new situations" such as the current crisis.

"We can not remain in a blur such as this", points the unionist, who nevertheless remains hopeful of seeing the employers soon mandated to negotiate an agreement on teleworking.

Without a national agreement, should companies be allowed to negotiate themselves with employees?

"We do not have, in France, a great practice of negotiation", recalls Laurent Mahieu.

"And when we have never negotiated on telework, if we do not have an executive who helps us, we will skate."