In an already convulsive climate, the National Assembly resumes its work this Monday with a controversial bill that initiates a new unemployment insurance reform.
Discussions on this bill on “emergency measures” for “full employment” should start from 9:30 p.m. On the menu at the Palais Bourbon until Wednesday, with some 300 amendments to the key, he initially plans to extend the current unemployment insurance rules. Coming from a hotly contested reform of Macron’s first five-year term, they expire on October 31.
The text thus allows the government to decide until the end of 2023 on the rules for compensation of unemployment insurance by decree. “This bill puts in parentheses the delegation to the social partners of the negotiation of the rules of unemployment insurance”, summarizes Patricia Ferrand, president (CFDT) of Unédic.
Modulation
The bill also triggers the possibility, by decree, of modulating unemployment insurance so that it is “stricter when there are too many vacancies, more generous when unemployment is high,” in the words of Emmanuel Macron during the presidential campaign. After a consultation phase in a few weeks with the social partners, the Government will decide by decree the form that this modulation will take, for its entry into force at the beginning of 2023.
“In the coming weeks”, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, must send the social partners a “consultation support”, in his words, in which he will discuss the ways planned to modulate the rules according to the situation of the labor market. The minister reiterated that the Government will not propose to touch the level of compensation but will advance clues about the duration of the affiliation to open rights (minimum 6 months of work of the last 24 currently) and the maximum duration of the compensation (24 to 36 months) . depending on the age).
Towards a “territorialization” of the rules?
Olivier Dussopt had planned to start this consultation in mid-September but explains that he delayed it to study whether the “territorialization” of the regulations (which would be applied according to the local economic situation) was legal and concretely feasible. “I asked our services to investigate this issue further to avoid side effects, but also to avoid setting up a completely incomprehensible system,” he said.
The document sent to the social partners will also mention the criteria for varying these rules. More than the unemployment rate defined by the ILO, which he considers too volatile from one quarter to the next, Olivier Dussopt mentioned in particular the relationship between job offers on the Pôle emploi site and the number of job seekers, which increased “from 50 to 170 offers for 1,000 applicants between 2017 and 2022.”
Since the unions oppose the principle of modulation while the business organizations are in favour, this consultation should consist more of bilateral technical exchanges than of plenary sessions where everyone would come to express their political disagreement.
Negotiation of a new governance in early 2023
The government then wants the social partners to hold negotiations in the first half of 2023 on the governance of unemployment insurance. Trade union and business organizations are in favor of this negotiation to clarify the responsibilities of the State and the social partners.
Unemployment insurance is managed by the social partners. But since the 2018 law, their negotiation margins are restricted by a government “framework letter” that establishes the objectives (in particular, savings) to be achieved. “We are in the middle of the ford, the status quo is not possible”, judge Patricia Ferrand. Unions and employers thus attribute the failure of the last negotiation in 2019 to an overly strict framework letter.
It’s also about who finances what. Unédic finances, together with unemployment benefits, part of Pôle’s employment budget, partial activity during the Covid crisis, etc. Once this new governance has been adopted, the social partners would negotiate a new compensation regime that would come into force at the beginning of 2024. This would coincide with the creation of France Travail to better coordinate the actors involved in employment.
The left deplores a “stigmatization” of the unemployed
Invoking the urgency in the face of hiring difficulties, the executive makes the reform of unemployment insurance one of the conditions to achieve the objective of full employment in 2027, that is, an unemployment rate of around 5% compared to 7.4 % current. The current unemployment insurance scheme “is not a sufficient incentive to return to work”, insisted Olivier Dussopt before the deputies in committee.
In unison with the unions, the left-wing alliance Nupes responds that hiring difficulties are mainly linked to training and the attractiveness of the professions (salaries, working conditions, etc.), and deplores a “stigmatization” of the unemployed. “We will resolutely fight against this unacceptable reform that diverts the philosophy of unemployment insurance and ignores ‘social dialogue,'” their leaders announced in Liberation.
In LR, the reception of the bill is better, although Thibault Bazin believes that it will not change “the situation in the short term to encourage the resumption of work”. As in the summer on the purchasing power package, the votes of these deputies, or at least their abstention, are necessary for the text to be adopted. The minister approached the right-wing proposals to toughen access to compensation for “post abandonment”, or to simplify the validation of experience gained (VAE), in particular for family caregivers, another part of the bill. A government amendment plans to propose a true “VAE public service” in the future. The elected RNs will not make the extra vote: they judge the measures incomplete, in the absence of taking into account in particular the youth.
Source: BFM TV
