35-hour week agreement at post office divides unions

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In February 1999, a framework agreement introducing a 35-hour working week was concluded at France's state-owned post office, La Poste. However, while four trade unions signed the agreement (CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC and CGT-FO), two others (CGT and SUD-PTT) refused to do so, claiming that it would create only a small number of jobs.

On 18 February 1999 a framework agreement on the 35-hour working week was signed at La Poste, the state post office company employing 300,000 staff. After seven months of negotiations, some of the trade unions declined to sign. While four unions - CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC and CGT-FO - supported the agreement, CGT and the independent SUD-PTT refused to sign it on the grounds that it would create only a small number of jobs. The agreement is in response to the 1998 "Aubry law" introducing the 35-hour working week (FR9806113F).

This agreement at La Poste comes at a time when the development of the company's staffing levels in demographic terms has reached an unusual point. Since 1992, the number of employees has decreased by around 3,000-4,000 per year, and in 1999 and 2000 management foresees 20,000 "natural" retirements. The 35-hour working week element of the new agreement is aimed at the re-establishment of the demographic balance, by creating 20,000 full-time jobs over 1999-2000, the equivalent to the number of retirements. After several years of continual job cuts, the agreement on the 35-hour working week thus provides the chance for La Poste to stabilise its staffing levels.

However, the agreement's overall impact in terms of job creation will be somewhat modest. While 6,000 posts with civil servant status may be created and management is also planning to recruit 2,000 apprentices, the increase in the number of jobs will basically be generated by the transformation of insecure jobs into stable full-time ones. Half of current part-time staff will move to the 35-hour working week, and up to 20% of staff on temporary contracts may be given open-ended ones. The reduction of working time will thus put a brake on the extension of these hidden forms of "under-employment".

The new agreement provides a framework, and the ways in which the 35-hour working week is actually implemented will be determined at local level. The management wishes to extend public opening hours of post offices to Saturday afternoons.

The unions did not react to the proposed agreement with a united front. CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC and CGT-FO warmly welcomed it, because of the end to staff cuts brought about by the introduction of the 35-hour week. Additionally, for these unions, the agreement will play a part in the fight against insecure and precarious employment. CGT and SUD- which have a high level of support within La Poste with 34.7% and 14.4% of the votes respectively in the latest workplace elections - were more measured in their support. Although these unions greeted the advances made by management, they emphasised the relatively small number of jobs created and would have preferred management to have made the 35-hour working week part of a more "offensive" set of job-creating measures. This demand seems all the more valid to these unions, because the company has sizeably increased its turnover in the past few years, while simultaneously lowering its payroll costs. Despite their refusal to sign the agreement, CGT and SUD intend to exert maximum pressure in the local negotiations which will soon get under way at La Poste's 17,000 branches.