Report examines collective bargaining in 2003

Source: Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Cohesion.

A notable development in 2003 was the national intersectoral agreement on continuing vocational training signed on 20 September 2003, and its transposition into law in December 2003 (FR0311103F). In addition to its content, and especially the establishment of an 'individual training entitlement' (droit individuel à la formation, DIF), this agreement attracted much comment because its signatories included the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), a trade union confederation that had not previously signed an intersectoral agreement since 1995.

Intersectoral bargaining also dealt with supplementary pensions schemes. An agreement signed on 13 November 2003 (FR0312103N): provided for a five-year extension of the scheme for funding retirement at 60 (from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2008); established an early retirement supplementary pension for workers under 60 who have had long working lives, and continued the process of harmonising the general supplementary scheme, ARRCO, and the management and professional staff supplementary scheme, AGIRC,.

The last important issue dealt with at intersectoral level in 2003 was unemployment insurance. Negotiations in this area mainly focused on the special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the entertainment sector. An initial series of agreements and amendments to existing ones were signed in June and July 2003, provoking substantial protests among the workers concerned (FR0307104F). Although endorsed by the government, these agreements were nevertheless withdrawn for technical reasons, and renegotiated in November 2003 (FR0402101N).

Sectoral bargaining

Sector-level bargaining slowed slightly in 2003, with 884 agreements and additional clauses to existing agreements signed - compared with 892 in 2002, 897 in 2001, 870 in 2000 and 761 in 1999. Running against a trend identified over several years, national-level sectoral negotiating activity fell noticeably, with only 578 agreements and additional clauses signed, compared with 637 in 2002, 607 in 2001 and 582 in 2000. However sectoral bargaining at levels below the national (ie regional, local etc) increased, with 306 agreements and additional clauses signed, compared with 255 in 2002, and 290 in 2001. This development has divergent components, with the local and départemental levels on one side, and the regional level on the other. It is at départemental and local levels that the number of agreements and additional clauses rose the most, with 140 concluded (up from 82 in 2002), dealing particularly with pay, while there were 166 at regional level (173 in 2002).

Table 2 below indicates the proportion of all sectoral collective agreements signed by each of the five representative national trade union confederations over 1993-2003. The proportion of agreements signed varied noticeably between 2002 and 2003, depending on the confederation in question. CGT, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération démocratique du travail, CFDT), and the General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO), clearly signed a smaller percentage of agreements in 2003, and in similar proportions - eg down 8.3 percentage points for CGT and 6.7 points for CFDT. On the other hand, the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and 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) raised their overall rate of signing agreements at sector level. CFTC did so especially at the subnational level, while CFE-CGC did so principally at national level.