Unions seek better employee representation in very small enterprises

In January 2010, the Craftwork Employers’ Association and four trade union confederations signed a joint letter asking the government to introduce a measure creating specific representation for employees working in very small enterprises with less than 10 employees. The move coincides with discussions set to take place in first half of 2010 on the issue of the threshold for compulsory elections of employee representatives.

On 20 January 2010, the Craftwork Employers’ Association (Union professionnelle artisanale, UPA) and four trade union confederations signed a joint letter (in French, 40Kb PDF) addressed to the country’s Prime Minister, François Fillon, and the Minister of Labour, Xavier Darcos. The letter asked the government to introduce a measure creating specific representation for the four million or so employees working in very small enterprises (très petites entreprises, TPEs) – that is, those with less than 10 employees. The four signatory trade union confederations involved were 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 French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT).

Towards the creation of local joint commissions

The issuing of the joint letter on 20 January was preceded by discussions, which started in December 2009 between UPA and five trade union confederations – namely, CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT and the General Confederation of Labour – Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail – Force ouvrière, CGT-FO). The initiative is based on the agreement dating back to 12 December 2001 on ‘the development of social dialogue in the craftwork sector’ (FR0206101N, FR0201143N). It also takes into account the law adopted on 20 August 2008 on the reform of representativeness (FR0808039I). The joint letter calls on the government to accept the measures proposed by the five signatory organisations during the debate due to take place in the first half of 2010 on the issue of the threshold for compulsory elections of employee representatives (délégué du personnel).

Thus, ‘to the extent that internal representation of employees in very small enterprises is not suitable’, the signatories consider that ‘collective employee representation should be provided by local joint commissions’.

Role and composition of joint commissions

The main role of such local joint commissions would be to:

• provide help regarding social dialogue;

• give information and raise awareness about industrial relations among employees and heads of companies;

• ensure that collective agreements are implemented.

Local joint commissions would be composed of representatives of employer organisations and of employees. These representatives would be designated by the five trade union confederations for a transitional period before being elected on the basis of two electoral colleges:

• a non-executive college of manual and office workers;

• an executive college of engineers, heads of departments, technicians, forepersons and similar positions.

This would therefore make it possible to measure support for these trade unions on the basis of the results of elections, which will be defined by collective agreement at sectoral level before 31 December 2012.

Trade union reaction

The representative of CFDT, Laurent Berger, welcomed the message that the joint initiative gave to employer organisations – namely, 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) – showing that it is ‘possible to organise social dialogue in very small enterprises. Mr Berger considers that the joint letter is ‘a first step, provided that the government listens’.

The National Secretary of CFE-CGC, Bernard Valette, noted that the joint letter ‘provides the government with ideas’. Mr Valette justified the deliberately succinct nature of the text by adding that ‘it is up to the legislator to draw up laws’.

The Vice-president of CFTC, Gabrielle Simon, emphasised that one of the reasons for creating such joint commissions is that ‘companies will not have the power to bargain, but all the sectors will do so’ – in this context, the commissions’ role will be to propose ‘bargaining at sectoral level and support implementation of agreements in very small enterprises. The President of CFTC, Jacques Voisin, also welcomed the opportunity for creating ‘joint commissions which would be able to collect the needs of employees and heads of these enterprises, in order then to render sector bargaining dynamic so that it meets the specific needs of the various sectors of activity’.

The representative of CGT, Philippe Lataud, welcomed the joint letter, emphasising that ‘a text signed by four trade unions and an employer organisation is an important action’. In his view, ‘the essential issue is in the text, namely that employees of small companies can begin to have elected representatives so that their problems are taken into account’.

The Confederal Secretary of CGT-FO, René Valladon, explained why his trade union federation did not sign the letter, attributing it to a number of reasons. In particular, Mr Valladon pointed to the fact that the text refers to measuring the support of TPEs’ employees for trade unions in line with the implementation of the law that was adopted on 20 August 2008, which CGT-FO opposed and had appealed to the International Labour Organization (ILO) at the end of 2009. Moreover, he raised a ‘problem of consistency’ in the text with existing measures, viewing it as ‘extremely risky to leave it to each sector to decide upon its own form of local representativeness’.

Position of employers

The President of UPA, Jean Lardin, stated that although he regretted CGT-FO’s decision not to sign the joint letter, he nevertheless considered that ‘it is not an unhoped for result, but a great satisfaction’. Mr Lardin expressed his wish that other employer organisations would support the text, which led them to take on board a topic that the employer organisations MEDEF and CGPME had put to one side.

As soon as the joint letter was signed, the National Union of the Liberal Professions (Union Nationale des Professions Libérales, UNAPL) welcomed the initiative, reiterating in a statement that ‘the proposal to create local joint social dialogue commissions was a necessary intermediate stage on the way to defining trade union representativeness’.

While the Coalition of Representative Employer Associations in the Social Economy Sector (Union de syndicats et groupements d’employeurs représentatifs dans l’économie sociale, USGERES) also welcomed the text, it asserted that it would do its own work on the topic in February 2010.

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