It was announced in November 1998 that the French government does not intend for the time being to undertake the statutory reform of redundancy law that Prime Minister Lionel Jospin promised when he came in June 1997. The government has opted instead further to tighten current preventive measures concerning redundancy programmes.
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It was announced in November 1998 that the French government does not intend for the time being to undertake the statutory reform of redundancy law that Prime Minister Lionel Jospin promised when he came in June 1997. The government has opted instead further to tighten current preventive measures concerning redundancy programmes.
During the 1997 general election campaign, Lionel Jospin promised to reintroduce the authorisation for dismissal mechanism, whereby authorisation had to be sought from the Labour Inspectorate prior to any redundancies. This mechanism had been abolished by the government of Jacques Chirac in 1986. Mr Jospin reiterated this promise in his general policy speech in June 1997 when his government came to office (FR9706149F).
In November 1998, the Ministry for Employment and Solidarity confirmed that "it has not given up" the idea of a bill but seems to have deferred it for the time being: "Our policy does not just come down to bills. We do not look at the problem in those terms. Our first concern is to prevent as many redundancies as possible and we have several options open to us to achieve this." The Ministry believes that the best way is to intervene in redundancy programme s (plans sociaux) "as far upstream as possible", to exert influence in favour of internal redeployment of workers and to force companies which can afford it to contribute more.
The government, observing that presently "early retirement costs twice as much as redundancy," has decided, by 1 January 1999, to double the contribution paid by companies with a workforce of over 50 for every person aged over 50 that they make redundant. At present, this contribution is set at between one and six months' pay (depending on the age of the worker) but this will be increased to between two and 12 months' pay. This should "restore the balance" between the cost of redundancy and of early retirement and would provide the government with FRF 1.3 billion in revenue, which would be given over to job creation. The Ministry stated that contributions would also have to be paid on retraining agreements, due to the fact that they are " being used more and more as a way of avoiding early retirement." Between 1994 and 1997, the number of workers over 50 in retraining schemes rose from "10% to 17.5%."
According to the business daily Les Echos (18 November 1998) a tougher government approach with regard to precarious employment is also to be expected. Measures affecting the maximum length of fixed-term contracts, the conditions of renewal and penalties to be imposed in cases of abuse are reportedly being studied and could come into force in early 1999.
Eurofound doporučuje citovat tuto publikaci následujícím způsobem.
Eurofound (1998), Reform of redundancy law deferred, article.
