Renegotiation of 35-hour week agreement in metalworking

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A new agreement on the application of France's 35-hour working week law in the metalworking sector was signed on 29 January 2000. It slightly amends the controversial agreement on the same issue signed in July 1998. While the CFTC, CGT-FO and CFE-CGC trade unions have signed the new agreement, CGT and CFDT have yet to do so.

After the second "Aubry" law on the 35-hour working week was promulgated on 19 January 2000 (FR0001137F), the Union of Metal Manufacturing, Mining, Engineering, Electrical and Metal Equipment and Allied Industries (Union des industries métallurgiques et minières, UIMM) began a new round of negotiations with the trade unions to bring the July 1998 agreement implementing the 35-hour week in metalworking (FR9808129F) into line with current legislation, and to make possible a request for its extension (ie to make it binding on the whole sector)

Several elements of the July 1998 agreement were controversial. The first law on the 35-hour week had been passed on 13 June 1998 (FR9806113F) and the UIMM agreement, planned to come into force in 2000, was the first sector-level agreement signed thereafter. It contained many exemptions from the Labour Code and was labelled "hypothetical" by the Minister for Employment and Solidarity, Martine Aubry. Moreover, the signatories (who did not include all the unions) did not request its extension.

After 20 hours of negotiations, a new and amended agreement was finalised on 29 January 2000. Its main provisions are as follows.

References to annual working time of 1,645 hours in the scheme whereby the reduction of working hours is accomplished by taking extra days off have been eliminated. Where working time is annualised, the threshold of 1,610 hours per year which had originally been planned has been lowered to 1,600 hours.

The annual quota of overtime has been kept at 180 hours per employee, or 150 hours if working time is annualised (the law sets these thresholds at 130 and 90 hours respectively, unless there is an extended sector-level agreement with different provisions). However, the new agreement omits the original provision for potentially raising the quota by 25 hours per year, per employee for a two-year period after the agreement has come into force.

The 1998 agreement provided for three types of working time scheme for managerial and professional staff, one of which was "not calculable in hours". However, it extended the concept of "managerial and professional staff" (cadres) to some categories such as technicians and supervisors. Since the 35-hour week law provided for the working time of only managerial and professional staff proper to be calculated in days (rather than hours), the negotiators have now plumped for a transitional system, pending the renegotiation in 15 months' time of the provisions of the collective agreement for managerial and professional staff in order to bring in some groups currently outside into that category. Pending this renegotiation, the agreement provides that some 400,000 technicians and supervisors receive the salary and perks deriving from managerial and professional status, in return for them being part of an annualised working time package consisting of either :

• 1,920 hours worked per year (1,600 annual hours 20%). The employees covered must be on a salary more than 30% higher than the minimum level set by collective agreement in their category; or

• 217 days per year, as provided for under the terms of the 35-hour week law. This package which is "not calculable in hours" is limited to those earning at least FRF 210,000 per year

More than 650,000 of the total 1.8 million employees in the industry will thus be included as managerial and professional staff when the agreement comes into effect.

The previous agreement excluded vocational training from actual working time. Under the new agreement, some training time can be recognised as working time.

The CFTC and CGT-FO trade unions signed the agreement at the end of the negotiations. CFE-CGC, which had been the third signatory to the 1998 agreement, approved and signed it a few days later. These three unions have stressed the continuity between the 29 January 2000 protocol and the 1998 agreement.

CFDT and CGT, representing over half the voters in the most recent workplace elections in metalworking, did not sign the 1998 agreement. CFDT "noted the progress made" by the new protocol, although it was not "fully satisfied" with it, and did not rule out signing the agreement in the weeks ahead. CGT greeted the deal unenthusiastically but agreed to present it to its decision-making bodies