Department store sectoral collective agreement is terminated

City-centre department stores have followed the banking sector in terminating their sectoral collective agreement in a dispute over the French Government's proposals on reducing working hours. Trade unions staged demonstrations in protest in April 1998.

The Union of City-Centre Department Stores (Union des commerces de centre ville, UCV) followed the example of the French Banks' Association (Association française des banques, AFB) and entered into negotiations on the reduction of working time at the beginning of 1998 (FR9802194F). Like the AFB, UCV too has now decided to terminate the sectoral collective agreement covering 40,000 workers on the grounds that the negotiations had "no chance of succeeding". The UCV entered the discussions with the aim of securing the annualisation of working time to compensate for the forthcoming move to a 35-hour statutory working week (FR9710169F).

The trade unions rejected the attitude of the department store employers as "reactionary," and qualified it as akin to "staff being held to ransom". The CFDT requested that the Government exercise its power to find a solution, "either by agreement with the sector's employers or by bringing department stores within the coverage of an existing retail sector collective agreement". All unions involved called strikes on the 7 April 1998 in rejection of the "flexibility" that employers wish to introduce. A 4,000-strong demonstration was held in Paris.

A further round of discussions between employers and unions was set for 22 April.