Unions oppose extra 'solidarity' working day

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From 2005, the French government has abolished one public holiday a year, with the extra 'solidarity day' of work being used to fund measures to assist the elderly and people with disabilities. Trade unions strongly oppose this move and have called for industrial action on 16 May 2005, formerly the Whit Monday public holiday.

Through a law adopted on 30 June 2004, the government abolished one public holiday per year, replacing it with an extra working day called a 'national solidarity day'. The aim is to fund policies to assist the elderly and people with disabilities to attain independence (FR0412104F), and the move came in the wake of the shocked response to the 15,000 premature deaths caused by the summer 2003 heatwave, including many elderly people.

Officially established in May 2005 by the Prime Minister, the National Independent-Living Support Fund (Caisse nationale de solidarité pour l’autonomie, CNSA) will distribute extra funds, broken down as follows:

• 40% (estimated at EUR 0.8 billion in 2005) will fund policies to assist people with disabilities;

• 40% (EUR 0.8 billion) will fund policies to assist elderly people, eg the renovation of sheltered housing (EUR 50 million) and the on-site provision of medical and nursing care, or the extension of domestic services (EUR 365 million) (FR0505107F); and

• 20% (EUR 0.4 billion) will fund the 'personalised independence allowance' (Allocation personnalisée d’autonomie, APA) (FR0412105F).

To finance the CNSA, since July 2004 a contribution worth 0.3% of payroll costs has been levied on employers in both the public and private sectors as a quid pro quo for the abolition of one public holiday between July 1 and 30 June of the following year. This has just been added to the proportion (0.1%) of the 'universal social contribution' (Contribution sociale généralisée, CSG) (FR9710170F) which is set aside for the funding of the modernisation and the professionalisation of home-help services (FR0505107F).

The contribution rate of 0.3% of payroll costs was set by the government and based on the ratio between the extra value added (in terms of GDP) arising from the extra day's work, and the annual extension of working time thus created (1,607 hours per year as opposed to the previous 1,600, or for workers whose statutory annual working time is defined in terms of working days, 218 days compared with 217). An extra day’s work per year, it is calculated, would generate an increase of around 0.46% of GDP.

Principles for selecting the solidarity day

In the public sector, following recommendations from the relevant bodies or the relevant jointly employer-unions technical committee (comité technique paritaire, CTP) (except in areas covered by the Ministry of Education, where it is chosen by the heads of the regional education authorities), the date of annual national solidarity day is set:

• by a decision taken by the executive body of the relevant local authority in the local government civil service;

• by hospital managers in the hospital civil service;

• by a decree from the relevant minister in the central government civil service.

In the private sector, a sector or company-level agreement sets the date of the solidarity day. This agreement can identify:

• a public holiday on which a particular workplace had previously been closed (apart from May Day);

• a day that was previously not worked because of reductions in working time; or

• any other method that allows work on a day which, in accordance with collectively-agreed provisions or company organisation methods, was previously a day off.

In the private and public sectors, failing a decision or an agreement, the solidarity day is set for Whit Monday.

As of the end of April 2005, 11 industries out of 274 had reached agreement on the date and the methods for implementing the solidarity day, according to the Ministry of Employment. Some large private sector companies and regional authorities (run by left-wing parties, which are hostile to this legislation) have decided to keep Whit Monday as a public holiday and limit the policy to the payment of the contribution of 0.3% of payroll costs without the trade-off of extra work. At the French National Railway Company (Société nationale des chemins de fer, SNCF), it was decided in February 2005 that the solidarity day was to be applied through increasing the daily working time of staff by a few seconds all year.

The Ministry of Employment’s Office for Labour Relations (Direction des relations du travail) stipulated in circulars of 15 December 2004 and 20 April 2005 the legal framework for the solidarity day. It states, among other points, that an employee’s refusal to work on the day concerned allows his or her employer to dock pay for the hours not worked.

Specific provisions have been set out for special cases among employees (the self-employed are not affected by the solidarity day) such as part-timers working extra pro rata hours, or setting another day other than a public holiday for all employees working for a company that never ceases operations.

Reactions

Responses to the solidarity day, particularly those of trade unions, strongly intensified during the weeks leading up to Whit Monday on 16 May 2005, all the more so because where the solidarity day was set for Easter Monday (28 March) due to local festivities, its application was hardly convincing.

In December 2003, the chairs of four jointly-managed social security funds - the National Employed Workers' Sickness Insurance Fund (Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie des travailleurs salariés, CNAMTS), the National Old-age Insurance Fund for Wage Earners (Caisse nationale d'assurance vieillesse des travailleurs salariés, CNAVTS), the Central Agency for Social Security Organisations (Agence centrale des organismes de Sécurité sociale, ACOSS) and the Agriculture Welfare Mutual Society (Mutualité Sociale Agricole, MSA) - criticised what they termed 'a bill that undermines the social security system’s solidarity mission in the service of the people by reducing its revenue'.

As soon as the establishment of the solidarity day was announced in 2003, although they did not dismiss either the idea or the need for national solidarity toward elderly people, the five representative trade union confederations - the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), 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), the the French Christian Workers' Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO) - stated their opposition to this policy on which the government had not consulted them, as did the Craftwork Employers' Association (Union professionnelle des artisans, UPA). CFDT feels that the system leads to 'unfair' funding and constitutes the 'wrong answer to a real problem'. CFE-CGC condemned the government’s attitude. On May Day 2005, CFTC demonstrated under the slogan 'Hands off my public holiday!' CGT also opposed 'a day’s work for no pay'. CGT-FO stated that 'pay, not hours, should be increased'. The National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes de l’éducation, UNSA) education branch demanded that 'a genuine consultation process finally be opened on the theme of solidarity'.

CFTC and CGT-FO filed lawsuits with the Council of State (Conseil d’Etat), which dismissed CFTC’s case on 3 May 2005 on the grounds that the criteria for an emergency ruling had not been met because the law did not inflict 'serious and clearly illegal damage on the employee’s freedom not to be constrained to carry out labour unwillingly'. CFTC immediately stated that it planned to pursue the case before the European Court of Human Rights.

The union confederations have called for their members to mobilise, or even take strike action, against the solidarity day. Basing this call on am apparently well-documented legal argument, they have informed their memberships that a strike on 16 May cannot be deemed illegal as long as it refers to other genuine occupational demands. Moreover, pay cannot be docked from a day’s work that is unpaid anyway, the unions state. All the civil service unions - CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT, CGT-FO, the Unitary Union Federation (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, FSU) and UNSA - have called on the personnel of the three branches of the civil service to make Monday 16 May 'a day of action and possibly strike action'. Strike notices have been issued in both the public and private sectors.

On the employers' side, both the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) and the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME) back the government’s policy. The government has announced that it will carry out an assessment of the solidarity day, and will strive to see that the law is fully enforced, starting with its own departments, in which ministers have given instructions to this effect.

Commentary

Apart from the fact that the establishment of the solidarity day has again extended working time just after the law overhauling the 35-hour week legislation was passed (FR0502109F), it has also raised the issue of the justice of this policy. Only employees are actually affected by this effort made in the name of national solidarity. Moreover, the issue of the necessary resources for the funding people’s independence is still a live one. (Benoît Robin, IRES)