Pay and status dispute at FNAC

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In March 2002, an agreement between management and trade unions ended a month-long dispute about pay and staff status at the FNAC music and book store on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. The deal made it possible for wage bargaining to be resumed for FNAC's other outlets.

In mid-February 2002, a strike broke out at the FNAC music and book shop in the Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris, where 220 staff are employed. The strikers were demanding a pay rise and asking for their working conditions and pay to be brought into line with that of their colleagues in other FNAC outlets. The dispute subsequently affected other stores, both in Paris and the rest of the country.

Since 1994, the FNAC chain has belonged to the Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) group. It employs a total of 10,000 people in shops with various different legal statuses, with each new FNAC set up being allocated a particular status and covered by one of a number of specific collective agreements. The FNAC SA corporate headquarters is covered by its own collective agreement. FNAC Paris includes the older Parisian stores (at Montparnasse, Etoile, Forum des Halles and Saint-Lazare), which grant their employees the most favourable status. The Champs-Elysées outlet, the newest, was opened in 1997 as an unlimited private company and is seen as having the worst conditions for staff. It is the only shop to be open until midnight, seven days a week, because it is located in a 'tourist area', and most of the 220 shop assistants and checkout operators are on fixed-term contracts or work part time. The Parisian music shops (at Bastille and Place d'Italie) and all stores in the suburbs of the city operate under the FNAC Codirep banner, while outlets outside the Paris region fly the FNAC Relais flag and have their own collective agreement. The FNAC Service shops (express photo developing and other services) are franchised, and the FNAC stores outside France have different statuses.

The demands of the FNAC Champs-Elysées employees, directly linked to their working conditions, demonstrated their opposition to personal and 'on merit' pay rises (as practiced by the store's management since 1994), and also advocated equal wage increases for all the group's staff. An agreement ultimately concluded on 15 March 2002 by the management and the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) at the Champs-Elysées store, provides for a general EUR 46 monthly pay rise for the shop's staff. This will ensure that the minimum wage level converges towards that of the other Paris FNAC stores. The agreement also contains a 25% pay premium for night work and a hardship allowance worth EUR 30.49.

The trade unions, which have formed an inter-union committee, had made the resolution of the Champs-Elysées dispute a prerequisite of the statutory annual pay negotiations in the other Parisian FNAC stores. Management's current wage proposal in these talks, deemed insufficient by the unions, is for: a pay rise worth 3.5% on average, with 2% guaranteed for all employees, for those earning less than EUR 1,303.56 per month; a pay rise worth 2.5% on average, with 1.5% guaranteed for all staff, for those earning between EUR 1,303.56 and EUR 1,524.49 per month; and an average 2.5% rise in the form of personal bonuses for those on higher salaries. In connection with this dispute, for the first time, PPR staff held a protest march together in front of corporate headquarters, responding to a call launched by CGT, the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaire, Unitaire, Démocratique, SUD) and the National Labour Confederation (Confédération Nationale du Travail, CNT).