Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff holds 34th Congress

In February 2010, the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff – General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (CFE-CGC) held its 34th Congress in Reims, just over three years after its previous one. The Congress re-elected Bernard Van Craeynest as CFE-CGC’s President, and voted on its activity and financial reports as well as discussing key policy issues.

On 17–19 February 2010, some 900 delegates of 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) met in Reims in northeastern France for the federation’s 34th Congress – just over three years after its previous Congress (FR0701029I).

Main participants and themes

The Congress was attended by representatives of the European Confederation of Executives and Managerial Staff (Confédération européenne des cadres, CEC), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and leaders of the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) and the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA). The country’s Minister of Labour, Xavier Darcos, also attended the Congress. On the last day, Minister Darcos addressed the delegates during a debate entitled ‘What kind of trade unionism for tomorrow?’ This debate followed a presentation of analyses regarding trade union involvement and an opinion poll on the image of the trade union movement and union expectations.

The 34th confederal Congress was marked by the leadership’s decision to focus on the issues arising from the reform introduced by the law on trade union representativeness, adopted in August 2008 (FR0808039I) – under the Congress theme of ‘our history has a future’. In March 2009, a plan for collaborating and even merging with UNSA, which had been promoted by CFE-CGC’s President, Bernard Van Craeynest, was suddenly suspended by the confederal leadership. Some of its members reproached the president for ‘managing this issue too personally’, whereas others were in favour of CFE-CGC remaining a representative trade union organisation for the executive grade alone.

Activity and financial reports

The outgoing General Secretary of CFE-CGC, Gérard Labrune, introduced the federation’s report on activities using video footage in which various confederal officers presented the main trade union events and initiatives for the period 2007–2009.

CFE-CGC claims a 14% increase in membership during these three years, totalling 112,947 members, 25% of whom are women. However, this is below the target of 200,000 members that was set in 2006. The confederation retained its leading position in representing executives at the most recent employment tribunal elections (élections prud’homales), which were held in December 2008 (FR0901019I), obtaining 8.2% of all the votes.

After the presentation of the activity report, two delegates from the metal industry and banking and insurance addressed the delegates. The President of the Metalworkers’ Federation of CFE-CGC (Fédération de la métallurgie CFE-CGC, CFE-CGC Métallurgie), Gabriel Artero, which represents 25% of the confederation’s membership, supported the leadership. However, he insisted that any discussion on building the future of the trade union should take place in a collective framework, involving all decision-making bodies of the union.

The results of the voting, which was carried out electronically as in 2006, led to the adoption of the following reports:

• the activity report, which received 73.7% of the votes, compared with 89.6% of the votes at the end of 2006;

• the financial report, which received 77.7% of the votes.

Policy emphasis

On 18 February, the candidates for the three leading positions at CFE-CGC addressed the delegates. As part of the proceedings, the Congress re-elected Bernard Van Craeynest as President of CFE-CGC, after he received 78.55% of the votes. The Congress also elected Carole Couvert to the position of General Secretary, along with Jean-Frédéric Dreyfus to the position of Treasurer.

• candidates highlighted the importance of three key issues:

• ensuring that both initial and continuing training offer ‘a future for young people and prospects for those already working’;

• necessary recognition of stress in the workplace as an occupational disease;

• family policy.

Moreover, the candidates emphasised the importance of promoting new initiatives through:

• the creation of the ‘CFE-CGC house in the service of activists and members’, with the CFE-CGC mission and values being placed at the heart of its actions for all employees in both the public and private sectors;

• increased membership and the provision of trade union education;

• discussions on trade union reorganisation with the confederal reflection and dialogue committee, along with a call to build the ‘third trade union force in France’.

In President Van Craeynest’s view, this new 2010–2012 mandate ‘is vital for CFE-CGC’, as the confederation has to prove that it remains a representative multi-industry union by 2013, given the new national rules regarding trade union representativeness. Indeed, in order to keep its status of a representative union, CFE-CGC must obtain at least 8% of the votes in occupational elections in four sectors of economic activity – manufacturing, commerce, services and construction.

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