Vocational training talks break down

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After a 10-month process, talks between the French social partners on vocational training reform, which formed part of their 'overhaul of industrial relations' project, ended in failure in October 2001. The trade unions and employers' organisations were unable to reach agreement on the distribution of the burden of training costs to be borne by employers and employees. Discord on the employers' side was a major factor in the demise of the talks.

Since early 2000, France's central social partner organisations have been engaged in discussions over an 'overhaul of industrial relations'- launched by the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) employers' organisation - which have taken place in series of working groups dealing with specific issues (FR0102134F) Discussions on the fifth topic within the process - vocational training - which began in December 2000, finally broke down during the night of 23-24 October 2001. As early as late July, negotiations were at a stalemate over the practicalities of the 'deposits' to be made in the 'training savings account', which MEDEF proposed be set up for each individual employee. The trade unions were united in their opposition to the employers' organisations' attempts to make employees liable for a greater share of their own training costs (FR0109102F). Continuing disagreement in the ranks of the employers' delegation led to the final breakdown.

Co-investment in training under discussion

Throughout the talks, the issue of training outside working hours pitted trade unions against the employers' organisations. Employers' organisations are keen to segregate training and working time to the greatest extent possible. To this end, the plan tabled by MEDEF at a meeting on 25 September 2001 proposed three categories of training.

1. employer initiatives, ie those which employers deem as replacing training currently falling under the mandatory company-level training plan (plan de formation);

2. training decided jointly by employers and employees, for which the sharing of time and costs are to be set out in an individual 'negotiated development plan' (plan de développement concerté); and

3. training initiated by the employee and developed outside the workplace.

In the view of the trade unions, a provision of this type is a thinly disguised attempt to renege on the introduction of the 35-hour working week (FR0001137F).

For employers' organisations, the financing of training should be jointly borne by both employers and employees. This co-investment arrangement should be achieved through an individual employee 'training savings account' (compte épargne formation, CEF). This account would be the 'property of the worker' and 'portable from one company to another'. Days of paid leave, a percentage of the reduction in the working week, overtime and bonuses etc could be paid into this account. For the unions, this account amounts to a reversal of the current distribution of the costs of training between employers and employees.

Differences between employers' organisations

The main reason for the breakdown in the talks stems from the inability of employers' organisations to agree on a joint position. Differences arose between 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) - but also within MEDEF itself between the leadership and some affiliated employers' associations.

Francis Mer, the chief executive of the Usinor steel group and the head of MEDEF's delegation, was faced with UPA and CGPME opposition to the inclusion - in an intersectoral agreement - of an individual right to training, which would be in competition with the existing mandatory company training plan. Similarly, no changes to the current system of collecting compulsory training funds were proposed during the negotiations. While MEDEF had toyed with the concept of eliminating the statutory funding requirement, strong opposition from the other two employers' organisations forced it to drop the idea. Small and medium-sized business is committed to pooling of training funds, since this enables resources to be redistributed to smaller entities.

The MEDEF proposal for an intersectoral agreement on vocational training stipulates that this agreement's detailed provisions on implementation would apply only 'in the absence of a sector-level or company-level agreement with the same scope'. This proviso is geared to maintaining existing agreements on training, such as those in the metalworking or construction industries. A case in point is the agreement signed by the powerful Union of Metallurgy and Mining Industries (Union des industries métallurgiques et minières, UIMM) on the implementation of the 35-hour working week (FR9808129F), which allows for up to 90% of training to take place outside working hours.

For the trade unions, this proposal to give primacy to lower-level agreements amounts to a reversal of the current hierarchy of labour standards and a departure from the 'favourability principle', whereby in order for a sector- or company-level agreement to take precedence it must be more beneficial to employees than an intersectoral agreement. Through this proposal, the employers' associations are seen as attempting to put into practice an arrangement that they failed to achieve through the social partners' 16 July 2001 common position (as part of the 'industrial relations overhaul' talks) on reform of collective bargaining (FR0108163F).

Ball now in government's court

In the light of the failure of the social partners; talks, the Secretary of State for Women's Rights and Vocational Training reiterated her intention to overhaul the vocational training system. Legislation due to be passed on the issue had in fact been put on hold until the substance of any agreement between the social partners became known. Given the sudden demise of the negotiation process, the overhaul of the principles governing vocational training is now back in the government's court.

The government has stated that it wishes to make training an individual right, specific to a person rather than a company as is now the case. This right would be portable and guaranteed by collective agreement (FR9904172F). However, legislation of this type has only a limited chance of being passed before the upcoming presidential and general elections in spring 2002.

Commentary

The talks on vocational training are the final issue to be dealt with under the 'industrial relations overhaul project' launched by MEDEF in February 2000. Employers' organisations will prefer to wait for the outcome of the forthcoming elections before proceeding further. To a certain extent, employers have bungled their walk-out from this part of the overhaul process. Indeed, the breakdown of the talks carries a negative symbolic value since training is an area where - since the major 1970 agreement on the issue - intersectoral consensus-backed agreements have been the norm. A positive outcome would have afforded the social partners some leeway on the issue of training, a margin for manoeuvre that the state had restricted through legislation adopted in 1993.

The failed talks lend weight to the arguments of proponents of new legislation. However, the fact that the breakdown occurred in the latter stages of the process does not leave the government - also constrained by the election schedule - much time to undertake the major shake-up of vocational training set out as a priority by Martine Aubry when she became Minister of Employment in 1997. (Catherine Vincent, IRES)