CFE-CGC seeks to increase membership levels

The French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (CFE-CGC) held its thirty-third congress in December 2006. The congress stated its determination to develop the organisation and membership of the union, in order to ‘bring more meaning to a world which has lost its bearings’. Moreover, the president of CFE-CGC called for debate on the need to ensure better security over the career path.

Congress agenda and participants

The French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff – General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l’encadrement – Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC) held its thirty-third congress in the region around Paris. Some 300 delegates met on 6–7 December 2006 in order to discuss and adopt the confederation’s report on past activities (2003–2006), along with its financial report and work programme. The agenda also included the election of members of the confederation’s various leadership bodies.

As in 2003, electronic voting was used for the adoption of the activity and financial reports, as well as for the elections to the leadership bodies. The three-person senior leadership team and the programme presented by the CFE-CGC President, Bernard Van Craeynest, were approved by 184 votes, with 33.6% of the electorate abstaining and 66.4% voting in favour. The vote of support was 2% higher than in 2005, but considerably less than the score of Mr Van Craeynest’s predecessor in 2003, which reached as high as 84.2%.

Representatives of other trade union confederations were also invited to the congress: a representative of the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and a spokesperson from the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) attended the meeting. Also present at the congress was the President of the European Confederation of Executives and Managerial Staff (Confédération européenne des cadres, CEC), Georges Liarokapis, who is a CFE-CGC member.

Assessment of past activities

To open the congress, the outgoing General Secretary, Jean-Louis Walter, who had been the interim leader of the trade union for several months, briefly summarised the activity report. The report was then outlined in greater detail in the form of a video presentation lasting more than one hour, which recounted the main points and union initiatives in chronological order. The report was adopted by 89.6% of those who voted.

Election of leadership positions

Mr Van Craeynest was elected as President of the CFE-CGC, while Gérard Labrune was elected to the position of General Secretary and Hélios Insa was returned as Treasurer, a position he has held since 1999.

Since the last congress in 2003 (FR0312101N), CFE-CGC had to elect a new president in December 2005, following the death of Jean-Luc Cazette, who had been re-elected as President at the congress. Mr Van Craeynest was chosen as the confederation’s leader following a heated debate between him and the other candidate, Danièle Karniewicz. The two candidates had been nominated respectively by the Metalworking Managers’ Federation (CFE-CGC Métallurgie), representing 24% of total membership, and the Chemical Managers’ Federation (CFE-CGC Chimie), representing 6% of the membership.

Speeches by representatives of various federations – for the chemicals industry, civil servants, health, agriculture and food, building, and insurance – criticised Mr Van Craeynest for not including Ms Karniewicz in the top leadership. Ms Karniewicz is currently President of the National Old-Age Insurance Fund for Wage Earners (Caisse nationale d’assurance vieillesse des travailleurs salariés, CNAVTS) and was re-elected as National Secretary of the confederation.

Work programme

The work programme centred on the urgent need to emphasise the importance of unionisation, with the aim of increasing the confederation’s membership from 160,000 members – 77% of whom are men – to 200,000 persons over the following three years.

Mr Van Craeynest also underlined the need to reinforce CFE-CGC’s internal cohesion and proposed ‘a team serving union activists and a working method for defending those’ whom CFE-CGC represents, in order to promote the confederation’s objectives effectively.

Given the proposals developed in two recent reports on social dialogue and on social partners’ representativeness, namely the Chertier (FR0606049I) and Hadas-Lebel (FR0606039I) reports, in addition to reports by the French Economic and Social Council (Conseil Économique et Social, CES), Mr Van Craeynest defended the following ideas:

• basing trade union representativeness on union density, rather than on the results of workplace election results;

• imitating Denmark, where only trade union members benefit from agreements signed by the unions.

The confederation’s president also promoted the idea of a ‘union responsibility contract’, which would constitute ‘a guaranteed career path, incorporating trade union activity, in order to give recognition to those who take on union responsibilities’.

Moreover, after denouncing the declining purchasing power and worsening working and employment conditions for professional and managerial staff, Mr Van Craeynest declared that he was in favour of introducing a minimum pay level for these categories of workers and called for debate on the need to ensure better security over the career path (FR0611049I).

Discussion with ministry and employer groups

The issue of representativeness and the proposal that only trade union members should benefit from a union agreement were discussed immediately after the congress at a meeting with the government and employer organisations. CFE-CGC organised this meeting on 8 December 2006 with the Ministry of Employment, Social Cohesion and Housing (Ministère de l’emploi, de la cohésion sociale et du logement) and representatives from the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF), the Union of Metallurgy and Mining Industries (Union des industries métallurgiques et minières, UIMM) and the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME).

Benoît Robin, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)