Home-Help Employers’ Federation established

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A Home-Help Employers’ Federation (USB-Domicile) was established in France in June 2004, bringing together six employers’ organisations, including the two largest. The home-help sector has around 220,000 workers. It is currently covered by four separate collective agreements, and one of the aims of the new federation is to promote a single industry-wide agreement.

The home-help sector has, over the past few years, been 'professionalising' its workers and seeking to bring together all the existing collective agreements into a single text. On 8 June 2004, a Home-Help Employers’ Federation (Union syndicale de la branche professionnelle du domicile, USB-Domicile) was established, bringing together six employers’ organisations, including the two largest. Three organisations declined to join the new body. The establishment of USB-Domicile marks a new milestone in the organisation of a sector facing major challenges and constraints.

The home-help sector

Bodies providing home-help services in France developed in the wake of the Second World War, initially to serve families and later the elderly. These bodies were not-for-profit associations and organisations. Associations, mutual societies and local authority personal social services departments still make up the majority of these bodies, though since 1996 private companies have also been authorised to provide home-help services. Organisations either provide services using their own resources and staff, or act as a go-between, putting home-helpers in touch with employers and managing helpers for third-party employers. The home-help industry now employs approximately 220,000 workers - mostly part-timers - who, for historical reasons, are covered by four different collective agreements.

Making staff more professional and improving the quality of service have been at the centre of changes in the home-help sector over the past few years. A standardisation process resulted in the French Standards Association (Association française de normalisation, AFNOR), publishing a 'home-help service standard' in September 2000. Legislation adopted in January 2002 overhauling social and 'medical social' action defines a status for home-helpers and requires them to be trained. In March 2002, a State Social Auxiliary Diploma (Diplôme d'Etat d'auxiliaire de vie sociale, DEAVS), was created to replace the Home-help Aptitude Certificate (Certificat d'aptitude à la fonction d'aide à domicile, CAFAD), created in 1989.

In light of these changes, it was deemed necessary to attempt to raise the profile of jobs in the home-help sector. The industry faces difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, while demand is high and a third of home-helpers are aged 50 or over.

Collective agreement

A collective agreement was signed on 29 March 2002 by six national employers’ federations in the sector and the home-help sector affiliates of the French Democratic Federation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the French Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO) and the Federation of Independent Unions (Union des syndicats autonomes, UNSA). It aims to: make jobs more prestigious and easier to identify; and provide social guarantees to workers, irrespective of the identity of their employer, including for-profit operators.

The agreement sets in place :

• a new classification system with three separate job categories and a clarification of tasks and duties;

• an opportunity for professional advancement through the acquisition of new skills within the framework of a training scheme or the validation of prior experience; and

• a significant increase in wages averaging 24% over three years, half of which was to be paid in the first year. The increase should enable State Social Auxiliary Diploma holders to reach a pay scale comparable with that of nursing auxiliaries.

After this agreement was signed, the government hesitated in endorsing and extending it to the whole sector. After various changes of tack, the agreement has, since July 2003, covered only the members of the signatory organisations and has failed to put an end to the co-existence of the sector's four different collective agreements.

The main difficulty in sector-wide implementation of the agreement stems from the increases in charges for home help that this would require. There are many different funding bodies, with the National Old-age Insurance Fund for Wage Earners (Caisse nationale d'assurance vieillesse des travailleurs salariés, CNAVTS), the Family Allowances Fund (Caisses d'allocations familiales, CAF), the Agricultural Social Mutual Society (Mutualité sociale agricole, MSA), and the départemental councils and their local bodies having independent decision-making authority. Only CNAVTS opted to endorse the increase in fees required by the agreement. This decision was binding on regional funds. In 2003, many home-help services found themselves in the red.

The Home-Help Employers’ Federation

Viewing the existing system of coordinating the representation of home-help employers as having reached its limits, the two largest employers’ organisations - the National Federation of Home-Help Associations (Union nationale des associations de soins et services à domicile, UNASSAD) with 10,000 schemes and 70,000 workers, and the Home-Help Association (Association du service à domicile, ADMR), formerly known as the Rural Home-help Association (Aide à domicile en milieu rural), with 3,000 local associations and 52,000 workers - proposed the creation of an official employers’ federation to be known as USB-Domicile. The aim was to give operators in the home-help sector greater representation towards the government and to encourage the promotion of a single industry-wide collective agreement.

However, three of the other four main organisations - ADESSA, with 25,600 workers and 224 member associations, the National Home-Help and Domestic Assistance Federation (Fédération nationale d'aide et d'intervention à domicile, FNAID), with around 100 associations and over 7,500 workers, and the National Federation of Associations Coordinating Healthcare Centres (Union nationale des associations coordinatrices des centres de soins et santé, UNACSS), with 200 member associations and 2,600 workers - declined to join the new body because of the proposed vote-weighting rules. Unlike the previous process for coordinating employer representation in the sector, vote weighting in the new federation is calculated according to the respective size of the member organisations. However, the National Federation of Assistance for Families/Confederation of Families (Fédération nationale des associations de l'aide familiale populaire/Confédération syndicale des familles, NAAP/CSF), with 4,500 workers employed by 72 bodies, has joined USB-Domicile.

Commentary

As was the case with the recent introduction of the 'independent living allowance' (Allocation pour l'autonomie, APA) - a measure aimed at providing assistance for people who are unable to live independently (FR0303104N and FR0403106F) - the increase in the cost of home-help services, which is a logical result of the professionnalisation of this type of job, comes up against financial constraints. Getting round this difficulty might lead to restricting the range and level of coverage of home-help services on the one hand, while on the other hand encouraging either private individuals to employ home-helpers directly or authorised bodies to supply them. In both cases, home-helpers would come under a much less advantageous collective agreement.

As well as helping to organise the home-help sector, the establishment of the Home-Help Employers’ Federation may raise the profile of employers in the 'social economy' sector. The organisations that founded USB-Domicile are all members of one of the employers’ associations with representative status in the social economy sector, the Federation of Representative Social Economy Employers's Bodies (Union de syndicats et groupements d'employeurs représentatifs dans l'économie sociale, USGERES). (Annie Jolivet, IRES)