New board and statute for UNEDIC unemployment insurance fund

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Following the conclusion in late 2000 of an agreement reforming France's jointly-managed UNEDIC unemployment insurance scheme, UNEDIC's statute and organisational structure were renegotiated and renewed in March 2001. The CGT and CGT-FO trade union confederations, which did not sign the agreement, will nevertheless sit on the administrative board, while Michel Jalmain of the CFDT union was elected chair of the board in April.

An agreement reforming France's jointly-managed UNEDIC unemployment insurance scheme was formally endorsed by the government, at the third time of asking, in December 2000. This followed 10 months of intense stop-start negotiations, which became a power struggle between the government and the employers' associations and trade union confederations (CFDT, CFE-CGC and CFTC) which signed the deal (FR0101114F). Following the final conclusion of the agreement, the only issue remaining to be discussed was UNEDIC's statute, with particular emphasis on the role and make-up of the various bodies managing the unemployment insurance scheme.

In late March 2001, the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) suggested to the trade unions and other employers' associations that discussions be held on the organisation and management of the unemployment insurance bodies. A meeting between the five nationally representative union confederations - CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT and CGT-FO- and the central employers' organisations - MEDEF, the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME) and the Craftwork Employers' Association (Union professionnelle artisanale, UPA) - on 21-22 March resulted in an agreement. Under this agreement, the number of Associations for Employment in Industry and Commerce_(_ Associations pour l'emploi dans l'industrie et le commerce, ASSEDIC s), which manage local unemployment insurance funds throughout France, will be cut from 52 to 30. This brings their number to approximately one ASSEDIC per administrative region (France is divided into 22 metropolitan regions and four overseas départements,which also hold regional status.)

The rules governing the way that decisions are made within UNEDIC have been quite significantly altered. The two-thirds majority which was previously required both among union representatives and among representatives of employers' associations in order to amend the UNEDIC statute has been reduced to three-fifths (MEDEF had initially sought a simple majority rule).

The negotiations in March also dealt with the place in UNEDIC's reformed management bodies of those union confederations that did not sign the new agreement on unemployment insurance - CGT and CGT-FO. CGT-FO confirmed that it would take its place in the various UNEDIC bodies from 22 May 2001, with CGT to follow suit a couple of days later. However, both unions have indicated that they intend to pursue their legal action against the new unemployment insurance agreement. The other trade unions and employers' associations consider that CGT-FO and CGT's participation in formal UNEDIC entities makes their legal action meaningless.

The UNEDIC administrative board has 25 trade union representatives and 25 employers' representatives. The trade union seats are split equally between the five representative confederations, with each having five seats. The employers' associations have different rules for distributing the seats allocated to them as a group. Heated discussions between them finally gave MEDEF 17 seats, CGPME five and UPA three.

UNEDIC's administrative board elected its new chair at its meeting on 3 April 2001. Traditionally, the chair has alternated on a two-year cycle between the trade unions and employers' associations, and Michel Jalmain of CFDT was duly elected to replace Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac of MEDEF.