Europe 1 with AFP 3:18 p.m., January 24, 2022

If the CFDT will not participate in the day of interprofessional mobilization on wages and employment this Thursday, its secretary general, Laurent Berger, has announced the organization of a "march of essential workers" on February 3 in Paris.

A way to highlight these insufficiently recognized employees, he continued.

The CFDT will organize on Thursday February 3 in Paris a "march of essential workers", in order to highlight these insufficiently recognized employees, announced its secretary general Laurent Berger on France Inter on Monday.

These workers risk drifting away from the job market if they are not recognized "in the mindset of society, but also in terms of wages, career development", he said. pleaded.

Raising branch minimums

If the CFDT does not join the day of interprofessional mobilization on wages and employment this Thursday, at the call of the inter-union CGT-FO-FSU-Solidaires, it calls for a revaluation of wages .

"The Smic is the hiring salary for someone who is not qualified. To stay there all his life as is the case in certain professional branches, it is unbearable", underlined Mr. Berger .

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For the union leader, the challenge is not so much to increase this minimum wage – as several left-wing presidential candidates propose – as to raise the branch minimums.

"Obviously the level of the Smic is important and the revaluation of the Smic according to inflation is very important. But then we must oblige each branch in the three months following the revaluation of the Smic to increase their minimum branch for a minimum that they are at minimum wage," he said.

"More than two million people" at Smic

"Today 63% of the 171 main branches have minima below the Smic. This means that we agree (to the fact) that more and more people are going to be at the Smic", he explained, then that "more than two million people are on the minimum wage", including "60% of women".

“This health crisis, if it has had an advantage, it is that we looked at these essential workers in the face, these workers who every day make the economy work, make society work”, he estimated.

In many professional branches the salary grids start below the minimum wage.

Employers are obliged to pay their employees at the minimum wage level, but this means that the latter experience little salary evolution during their career.