Negotiations on precarious employment in the civil service

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In late June 2000, a protocol agreement was reached by the Minister for the Civil Service and State Reform and trade unions on "the progressive elimination of insecure employment in the three branches of the civil service, and improved management of employment within the public services". The deal, which the unions had until 10 July to ratify, will give official civil servant status to many workers currently on fixed-term contracts.

On 26 June 2000, the new Minister for the Civil Service and State Reform, Michel Sapin, reached a protocol agreement with the trade unions on "the progressive elimination of precarious employment in the three branches of the civil service and improved management of employment within the public services". The representative unions in the civil service had until 10 July 2000 to give their assent to the agreement. The successful negotiation of the proposed deal followed the failure to conclude a framework agreement on introducing the 35-hour week in the civil service (FR0003151F).

The five-year "Chapin plan" concerns employees in the three branches of the civil service - central government, hospitals and local authorities - on fixed-term contracts: whether considered "contract" workers, substitute, temporary or auxiliary staff; whether their wages are paid out of each administrative authority's own budget or from the state budget for civil service pay; and whatever civil service category their job falls into - A ("managerial and professional staff"), B or C.

Employees likely to benefit from the plan to confer official civil servant status must:

• perform work that should be carried out by civil servants with full status;

• have been in their jobs for at least two months between 10 July 1999 and 10 July 2000; and

• have been employed for at least three years at "full-time equivalent" over the previous eight years.

Special competitive exams will be organised for the staff concerned. However, for auxiliary teaching staff without full status (""maîtres auxiliaires), "professional exams" can be arranged, as they can for staff in category C (with the notable exception of personnel on scale 2, the lowest level, for whom direct conferral of full official status will be standard practice). Lastly, some local authority employees can be granted full status without having to qualify further.

People on "employment solidarity contracts" (contrats emploi-solidarité) and "consolidated employment contracts" (contrats emploi consolidés) (forms of job-creation scheme - FR9806116F) are not included in the plan. They will, however, be able to take a training course aimed at passing competitive exams for entry into the civil service, and those over 55 may have the opportunity to extend their contracts until retirement. People on "youth employment contracts "(contrats emplois-jeunes), also excluded from this plan, will be the subject of a special consultation process through an ad hoc working group.

The protocol agreement seeks to "open the way to improved management of employment in the public services", through a system of planning. This will be no easy feat: a recent Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) report, La Fonction publique de l'Etat, was critical of the lack of standard accounting practices for keeping track of jobs and staff numbers. This lack of clarity now makes it difficult to provide precise figures on the number of employees affected by the measures to grant official status advocated in the Sapin plan. To fill this gap, a "public service employment observatory" was established by the Minister on 4 July 2000. Recruitment regulations and methods used for managing personnel with full status are to be gradually reformed and the possibilities for using contract staff stipulated, in order to avoid recreating precarious employment.

Overall, the plan has generally been welcomed by the seven representative civil service unions. CGT and CFE-CGC however, expressed serious concerns. The other unions (CFDT, CFTC, CGT-FO, FSU and UNSA) appeared to be in favour of signing the agreement on 10 July 2000.