Results of 1997 works council elections

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May 1999 saw the publication of the results of France's 1997 works council elections. The data reveal two main trends- a fall in voter turn-out and an increase in support for the CGT and the CFDT trade union confederations.

Every year, the Office of Research Coordination and Statistics (Direction de l'animation de la recherche et des études statistiques, Dares) at the Ministry for Employment and Solidarity, (Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité) publishes the results of the elections of employee representatives on works council s (Comités d'entreprise) elections held two years previously. These elections are held every two years in companies with a workforce of over 50. In order to draw comparisons, the results from even years must be examined together, as must those from odd years. The new data deal with odd years, and should thus be compared with 1995, 1993 etc, while last year the Ministry published the results for 1996, an even year (FR9809131F).

The new figures show that in 1997 the election turnout decreased by 0.2 percentage points between 1995 and 1997, to stand at 65.8% of those entitled to vote. A 0.5 point drop had been registered between 1994 and 1996.

Consistent with a trend which began in 1993, lists of non-unionised candidate received greater support than the lists of any one trade union in 1997. However, union influence increased slightly, since support for union lists overall was up 1.6 percentage points from 1991, which was the year of record performance for the non-unionised slates (30.9% of the vote). Two unions emerged winners from this break in the trend. CGT gained 0.7 points over its 1995 score, bringing it back to its 1991 level of 20.4%. The advance made by CFDT was more modest (up 0.3 points) but, with 20.8% of votes cast, it remains the most supported union. CGT-FO retreated slightly (down 0.2 points) capturing 12.1% of the vote. The CFTC and CFE-CGC scores remained unchanged. The table below provides more detailed information on the results, which refer to the voting in all the electoral colleges (blue- and white-collar workers, managerial and professional staff).