The recent reforms of collective negotiation rules have tended to make it an instrument of adjusting the salary relationship to the competitiveness of companies. On the contrary, it should be rethought in a logic of protecting and acquiring employees’ rights.
The problem
Since the El Khomri law in 2016 and the ordinances “ Work From 2017, which radically modified the rules of union representation and collective negotiations, the company agreements constitute the basis of the legal labor rules, the branch agreements applying only in the absence of company agreements, with some exceptions. When the latter exist, they can be less favorable than the branch agreement, even than the labor code itself. This is the case, for example, for the rate of increase in overtime, set at 25%, but which can be reduced to 10% subject to agree. The collective business negotiation has thus become, in around thirty years, one of the ways of facilitating the adaptation of labor organizations and remuneration to the competitiveness strategies of companies, making the logic of protection back down which presided over the birth and development of labor law (Pélisse, 2019).
Where they are present, the unions are certainly often able to negotiate compromises, preserving part of the employees’ acquis. Their negotiation power is however very unequal, especially in the sectors calling on an unskilled and more easily interchangeable workforce (Giraud, Signoretto, 2023). More generally, under the threat of blackmail or investment blackmail, constant incentives for corporate negotiation by governments have largely accompanied the policies of intensification and flexibilization of working time, and indexing of remuneration to the objectives of financial performance of the company (bonus, profit -sharing, etc.) (Giraud and Pélisse, 2024). As for the negotiations supposed to strengthen the rights of employees (professional equality, working conditions, employment, etc.), they are often formal, without necessarily monitoring as to their implementation and hardly compensate for the decline in the rights of employees. Where the unions are absent, employees are all the more exposed to the risk as the use of referendums or the mechanisms of collective negotiation is used to derogate from collective agreements and lead to degrading their wage condition (Berthier et al., 2022). And if the branch agreements remain a reference framework for many companies, they have also lost their power to regulate the salary relationship (Delahaie et al., 2023). In the recent inflation period, conventional minimums have for example been aligned with the increases in Minimum wagebut often without renegotiating the entire wage grid, thus contributing to the complaint of wages in the sectors with low remuneration (Tallard et al., 2024).
The proposal
Restore the primacy of branch agreements, conditioning business assistance policies at the conclusion of agreements, and by sanctioning the non-application of agreements. This will strengthen the role of collective negotiation as a lever to protect employees’ rights, and improve their working and remuneration conditions.
How does it work
For this, this would be to reclaim the rules of collective negotiations from three principles. The first is to restore the primacy of branch agreements on company agreements, to re -register business negotiation in a logic of improvement and not to bargain the rights of employees. It is a question of making exemptions by company agreement only if they improve the rights of employees, in application of the principle of favor that had erected jurisprudence, in order to avoid the logics of social dumping. The second is to strengthen the protective nature for employees of conventional rules. In the area of remuneration, to avoid alignment from the bottom of wages, it would be a question of for example of conditioning the policies of aid to companies and exemptions of social contributions to the conclusion of agreements which concern the wage grids as a whole. The third principle consists in strengthening the effectiveness of company agreements, by establishing financial sanction mechanisms, by the labor inspectorate, in the event of non-application of agreements.
How to implement
Organization of a social conference so that union and employer organizations agree on the methods of implementing these three principles ; A bill developing the labor code to enact them and provide decrees taking up the proposals.
On what research work is the proposal founded ?
– B., Signoretto C. (dir.), A wage compromise in crisis. What remains to negotiate in companies ? Editions du Croquant, 2023.
– Giraud B. and Pélisse J. (dir.), Social dialogue under controlColl. The life of ideas, Puf2024.
Pélisse J., “ A reverse cold strike ? Elements on changes in professional relations in the French company (1968-2018) “, Negotiationsn ° 31, 2019, p. 61-81.
– Delahaie, N., Fretel, A. and Petit, H., The role of the branch in the definition of the conditions of employment and wages. In landing B. (dir.), What do we know about work ? Presses de Sciences Po, p. 290-305, 2023.