Unions in force at Matignon, pensions in everyone's minds

After a meeting with the inter-union at the beginning of April that had been cut short, Elisabeth Borne receives this time each of the five representative organizations, without a precise agenda.

The Prime Minister, regularly heckled by the pots and pans of opponents of the reform, says she is "listening to the priorities" of trade unions and employers' organizations.

While she blows out her first candle Tuesday at Matignon, receiving Monday a satisfaction from Emmanuel Macron for his action tinged with "strength, determination and courage", she will meet in the late afternoon with FO and the CFDT. Then Wednesday morning with the CFE-CGC and the CFTC, before the CGT in the afternoon.

These meetings are part of the roadmap that Emmanuel Macron has entrusted to Elisabeth Borne to revive the executive after the pension crisis.

The inter-union reiterated Monday in a statement its "determined" opposition to the reform, against which it is organizing a 14th day of strike and demonstrations on June 6, two days before the examination of a bill of the Liot group to repeal it.

The unions invite MPs to vote for it, to "(respect) the will of the population massively expressed since January".

Messenger

Liot's text is the subject of intense reflection by the majority groups, which weigh in particular the argument of "financial inadmissibility", in reference to the constitutional rule that a proposal coming from parliamentarians cannot deteriorate public finances.

CFDT general secretaries Laurent Berger (L) and CGT Sophie Binet (R) before their meeting with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in Paris, April 5, 2023 © Bertrand GUAY / POOL / AFP

Elisabeth Borne met Sunday in Matignon to discuss the Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem groups, with the president of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet. Several ministers and leaders of the majority also spoke about it at the Elysee Palace on Monday morning, according to a participant. The majority intergroup will unveil its strategy on Tuesday.

After the forceps adoption of the pension reform, which fueled the May 1 protests, the unions come with a bag full of demands and could raise the stakes.

In the context of inflation, the unions mainly hear about wages, and will repeat that they consider "unfair and brutal" the degressivity of unemployment benefits or the conditionality of access to the RSA (minimum income for people without resources, editor's note) - whose beneficiaries could be subject to sanctions.

All the unions are demanding that public aid to companies be "conditional" on social objectives, such as wage increases, and environmental objectives.

The CFDT will ask for a suspension of contribution exemptions for branches that have minima lower than the minimum wage. The CGT, which comes, in the words of its N.1 Sophie Binet to the Parisian "to make demands", "to negotiate, not to discuss", wants for its part an indexation of wages on the rise in prices.

Autonomous

The employers' organisations, which will be received next week, would have preferred autonomous negotiations with the unions before seeing the government. Medef regularly highlights their agreement on value sharing.

In addition to the employment of seniors or arduousness, all subjects rejected by the Constitutional Council, the Prime Minister intends to build with the social partners a "social agenda" for a "new pact of life at work".

A bill, "which will embark the result of negotiations" between unions and employers, should be tabled at the end of the year or early 2024, according to Matignon.

But despite the resumption of dialogue, "mistrust will remain extremely deep," warned Sophie Binet for whom "there will be no return to normal if this reform (of pensions) is not abandoned".

"We will continue to say that the page is not turned" on pensions, but "we can not not talk about inflation, purchasing power," said CFTC president Cyril Chabanier, believing that the unions are "in a position of strength thanks to the social movement".

"Everything will cost more," abounds Laurent Berger, boss of the CFDT, which will also have requirements in terms of method. "What is the co-construction they intend to enter?"

© 2023 AFP