Controversial working time agreement signed in insurance

In late July 2001, an agreement implementing France's 35-hour week legislation in the insurance sector was signed by the FFSA employers' organisation and the CFDT trade union. The deal - which gives company agreements primacy over the sectoral agreement in certain circumstances - has been roundly criticised by the industry's other trade unions and has not so far been signed by other employers.

Since the October 1997 national conference on employment, pay and working time (FR9710169F) - when the law reducing the working week to 35 hours was first mooted - Denis Kessler, the chair of the French Federation of Insurance Companies (Fédération française des sociétés d'assurances, FFSA) and an eminent leader of the MEDEF employers' confederation (to which FFSA is affiliated), has emerged as one of the most hardened opponents of the new legislation on the 35-hour week. However, the employers' federation he heads has recent signed an agreement bringing the insurance sector into line with the legislation on working time.

After 1998 and the first 'Aubry' 35-hour week law (FR9806113F), FFSA, the insurance industry's main employers' organisation, initially set itself against the principle of negotiating on the reduction of working time at sector level, unlike other employers' associations - such as that in metalworking (FR9808129F). However, in the insurance industry, bargaining on this topic has emerged at company level, especially among mutual insurance companies belonging to the other main employers' organisation in the sector, the Mutual Insurance Firms Group (Groupement des entreprises mutuelles d'insurance, GEMA).

The passage of the second 'Aubry' law in January 2000 (FR0001137F) convinced more of the industry's companies to open negotiations. Sector-level bargaining then began in mid-2000 and proved difficult, characterised by disagreements between GEMA and FFSA. On 24 July 2001, FFSA and the service sector federation of the CFDT trade union confederation, the largest employees' organisation in the industry (with around 40% of the vote at the most recent workplace elections of employee representatives), signed a additional protocol to the national insurance industry collective agreement, amending the section dealing with working time to comply with the second Aubry law. Of the employers' organisations, only FFSA signed and GEMA has not yet made a decision as to whether it will do so.

The agreement sets maximum annual working time at 1,580 hours, or 213 days, instead of the 1,600 hours or 217 days stated in the Aubry law. According to French labour law's 'favourability principle', a collective agreement can usually only establish conditions which more favourable than those of the law, while a sector-level agreement cannot be less favourable than an intersectoral agreement, or a company-level agreement less favourable than a sector-level agreement. Exemptions to this principle are strictly defined. However, according to the new insurance agreement, the 1,580-hour ceiling can be imposed only if there is no company-level agreement. Company agreements setting 1,590 or 1,600 hours per year that have already been signed will still apply under the new agreement (although the sectoral agreement provides for 1,580 hours).

The CFDT service federation, considering that from a union standpoint, negotiations on working time are based on seeking the most favourable balance for employees between a number of variables (working time, pay, employment levels and work organisation), is not against such a 'subsidiary' or 'complementary' concept of sector-level agreements. The other unions (CGT, CGT-FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC) have criticised what they see as an attempt by Mr Kessler to impose in insurance what MEDEF did not manage to change at intersectoral level in the 'collective bargaining ways and means' working group within the current 'industrial relations overhaul' discussions among the central social partners ((FR0102134F)) - ie overturning the current hierarchy of bargaining, at least between sector and company levels. In July 2001, the intersectoral social partners agreed a 'common position' on reform of the rules governing collective bargaining, which did not question this hierarchy (FR0108163F).

GEMA has been very quiet, both on this change sought by the FFSA, and on the provisions of the new agreement concerning Saturday working.

Another important topic broached in the insurance industry agreement is the issue of union representative status. The issue of the representativeness of trade unions that sign collective agreements has become topical over the last few years with the emergence of collective bargaining on the reduction of working time (FR9909104F). This is another subject that has split the trade unions: the July 2001 'common position' on bargaining reform, which CGT refused to sign, testifies to this.

With regard to the validation of new company-level agreements on the reduction of working time, the insurance industry agreement has created a right of opposition that enables unions which received the votes of more than half of those registered to vote in the most recent workplace elections to have a draft agreement ruled null and void.

The deadline for signing the agreement on the reduction of working time in the insurance industry is 21 September 2001. It is therefore possible that it will ultimately be signed by other employers' associations and unions, in addition to FFSA and CFDT. Beyond that date, it will be up to the Minister for Employment and Solidarity, in the autumn, to reach a decision as to whether the revision of the national collective agreement should be extended to all the other firms in the industry.