Download article in original language : FR0311103FFR.DOC
In September 2003, the French social partners signed a national intersectoral agreement on 'employees’ lifelong access to training', thus ending negotiations which began in 2000. The accord provides for the creation of a new individual right to continuing vocational training and an increase in the financial contribution paid by employers. The agreement is particularly notable because it was signed by CGT, a trade union confederation that had not previously signed an intersectoral agreement since 1995.
Reform of continuing vocational training was one of the issues considered under the 'industrial relations overhaul' initiative launched by the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF), France's main employers' confederation, in 2000 (FR0002143F). However, negotiations on the matter broke down in October 2001, with the parties 'agreeing to disagree' (FR0111123F). Talks resumed in January 2003 (FR0302104N and FR0308102N) and closed on 20 September 2003 with the conclusion of a national intersectoral agreement on 'employees’ lifelong access to training'.
More than its content – the ways in which the broad principles outlined in the agreement will be implemented are still to be stipulated by the authorities or worked out in further negotiations – it is the number of signatories that make the deal noteworthy. After consultation with its governing bodies, breaking with a policy of opposition to recent intersectoral agreements, the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) decided to sign up alongside the four other trade union confederations with representative status - the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), 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). The three main employers’ associations - 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) - also signed.
The signatories’ objective in the agreement is to prioritise the individualisation of training paths. As the head of the MEDEF delegation, Alain Sionneau stated: 'this is an innovative scheme as it gives priority to the personalisation of training, which will now be possible thanks to interviews, professional assessment, the training passport and the validation of work-derived experience' (validation des acquis de l’expérience, VAE).
Increased funding for individualisation of training
The agreement sets out details of a number of vocational training tools, most of which are already in place, but whose use is now facilitated. Employees with 20 years’ work experience and those over the age 45, regardless of work experience, will be eligible for a 'skills audit' (to be carried out outside working hours) after their first 12 months in their current job, and will be given prioritised access to the recognition of their work-derived experience (VAE). Moreover, all employees with two years’ service will be able to have a career guidance interview carried out within their company. Finally, the agreement has created a new tool: the 'training passport' (passeport formation), drawn up at the behest of the employee, who takes responsibility for it, and which lists the knowledge, skills and occupational aptitude acquired either in initial and continuing training or through professional experience.
The innovative aspect of the agreement lies in the establishment of a new scheme, the individual right to training (droit individuel à la formation , DIF), alongside the existing 'training plan' (plan de formation) and 'individual training leave' (congé individuel de formation, CIF). The latter type of training programme, selected by the employee, undertaken during working time and paid for by mutual funding bodies, remains unchanged. However, the methods of implementing training undertaken as part of the training plan designed by the employer will now differ according to the type of training. Costs and wages are still paid for by the employer, but three categories of training under the training plan are identified:
- training for the job/post to be occupied by the employee, which is to be carried out during working time and paid at the normal rate;
- training linked to the future development of the employee's job role or which is necessary for safeguarding the job. This is to be implemented during working hours and paid at the normal rate but where the number of hours required exceeds the normal working hours, the extra time will not be included in the worker's overtime quota; and
- training whose goal is skills development, and which leads to acknowledgement by the company (in the form of a better job, promotion, a wage rise etc). This can take place outside working time, on the condition that there is a formal agreement between the employer and the employee, and up to a limit of 80 hours per year. These hours will be paid at 50% of the employee's net wage.
The classification of training into one or other of these categories is the employer’s responsibility but must be subject to consultation with the works council.
The new DIF scheme seeks to enshrine the individualisation of training as a core principle. All employees with more than 12 months’ service with their company will be accorded a 20-hour 'credit' per year (pro-rata for part-timers), which can be rolled over for six years. This credit is aimed at enabling the employee to take training either during or outside working hours, depending on the provisions in the applicable sectoral or company-level agreement. Hours of training carried out during working time are paid at the usual rate, while training carried out outside working hours will be paid at 50% of the net wage. Exercising their new right to training is left to the employees' initiative, but must be the subject of a formal agreement with the employer. The issue of the transferability of the DIF when an employment contract ends - thus making the entitlement personal rather than company-based - was one of the most hotly-debated points in the negotiations. The mechanism provided for in the agreement is applicable to termination of contract for personal (except in the case of serious misdemeanour) or economic reasons, and is the first step towards transferability. It will be possible for employees who lose their jobs to use the monetary equivalent of their unused training hours credit to fund the drawing up of a skills audit, VAE or training programme, provided that the employee requests this when notice of termination is given.
The agreement also deals with people under 26 who want to top up their initial training, and with unemployed people, by offering them a 'professionalisation contract' (contrat de professionnalisation). This will replace the existing work/training contracts (in which work experience is combined with college-based learning). A 'professionalisation period' is also provided for in the case of some employees, particularly those whose level of qualifications lags behind technological and organisational developments.
The signatories of the accord are also looking to reduce inequalities in terms of access to training, especially in small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). In order to encourage sector-level negotiators to tackle this matter, the intersectoral agreement, alongside sections reiterating the respective roles of the various jointly-run bodies that have input into training, advocates the setting up of 'observatories' on occupations and qualifications, which will be responsible for forecasting the future job requirements of the various sectors.
Lastly, employers’ representatives agreed that the company’s financial contribution to vocational training should be significantly increased:
- for businesses with 10 or more employees, this contribution rises from 1.5% of payroll costs to 1.6%; and
- for businesses with fewer than 10 employees, the contribution will rise from 0.25% to 0.40% of payroll as of 1 January 2004, then to 0.55% in January 2005.
However, a number of the agreement’s contents are still to be elaborated on and implemented by either intersectoral bargaining (this is the case, for example, for career guidance interviews, skills audits and the training passport), or sectoral and company-level negotiations (eg the DIF and employment observatories). The agreement’s coming into force is also conditional on certain legislative and regulatory developments (in terms of the professionalisation contract, funding etc). Unions and employers’ associations have sent a jointly-signed letter to the Minister of Labour which lists the required amendments. The Minister has agreed to place a bill before parliament as soon as possible.
Rare trade union unanimity
As noted above, the vocational training agreement was signed by all the employers’ associations and trade unions. The last occasions on which the CGT union confederation signed intersectoral agreements were 1994 and 1995, and even those were relatively unimportant, covering the collection of training funds (1994) and early retirement schemes (1995). CGT had not signed any previous agreements reached under the 'industrial relations overhaul' programme, such as those on the UNEDIC unemployment insurance system (FR0101114F) and supplementary pensions (FR0102134F). When it signed the new agreement on continuing vocational training, CGT thus inaugurated a new policy direction, consisting of signing 'improvable' agreements in the spirit of constructive commitment. 'We are not saying that this agreement is like the one on pensions or the one on UNEDIC. Those are both clearly agreements of social aggression against employees. In this one, there are positive aspects,' according to Maryse Dumas, CGT confederal secretary and head of its negotiating delegation. It was because the employers abandoned what the unions found to be their most unacceptable proposals, such as the overturning of the hierarchy of legal and collectively agreed standards and employer-employee co-investment (FR0109102F and FR0302104N), that unanimous agreement was able to be reached. For its part, CGT also went back on its rejection of any training programme being carried out outside working hours, which it had held onto since 1991.
Commentary
The importance of the fact that CGT signed up to the new agreement extends far beyond its immediate context, ie continuing vocational training. This change should be linked to the recent opening of talks between the trade unions and the Minister of Labour on the 'modernisation of social dialogue' (FR0311101N). CGT is demanding the introduction of a system of majority collective agreements (ie ones that have to be signed by a majority of unions in order to be valid, and not just one as is the current practice) at all levels of bargaining. This requirement will be all the more credible if CGT has proved that it is willing to sign agreements that it feels are positive, and does not isolate itself with a strategy of opposition.
Coming back to the content of the agreement, the level of responsibility for training granted to the individual employee is limited. Instead, the agreement plans to add a further scheme, the DIF, without fundamentally altering the 'economy' of the system of continuing vocational training, which also made signing up to it easier. Although the DIF might be the outline of a scheme that is better suited to SMEs, it is hard to see how, on its own, it can create a strong desire for training among employees with few qualifications, and in particular, enable greater support to be given to them in the face of resistance on the part of their employers. (Catherine Vincent, IRES)