This is one of the main projects of the social day that opens this Monday: the revaluation of salary scales within the branches in relation to the SMIC. And if some are bad students in this area, others have played the game in recent months, such as the hotel, cafe and restaurant sector.
Within this branch – which does not include fast food – the exercise of social dialogue was effective as demonstrated by the two agreements signed in 2022 and 2023. The first established an increase of 16.4% on the average salary levels defined by the branch grid, which came into effect in April 2022. As for the second, it registers an average revaluation of the network of 5.2%, effective since October 1.
“This year we wanted to focus especially on levels 1 and 2 of the network,” explains Éric Abihssira, vice president of the Union of Hotel Industries and Trades (Umih). “In April 2022, levels 4 and 5 were updated.”
4.6% increase in the base salary index
However, this does not mean that employees have benefited from increases of this magnitude in their payrolls. According to Dares, the sector’s basic monthly salary index (SMB) increased by 4.6% between March 2022 and March 2023, far from the average increase of 16% in the salary scale that came into effect in spring 2022.
We remember that the amount of the SMB “generally corresponds to that of the first line of an employee’s payroll,” Dares specifies in his place. Otherwise, it corresponds to the gross salary before deduction of social contributions and payment of social benefits, without bonuses or overtime.
Umih, the main union of hotel and restaurant employers, also estimates average effective increases of around 4%, according to its vice president Éric Abihssira.
But part of this increase only had the effect of reaching the minimum wage. Because, like almost half of the professional sectors in France, the hospitality industry had a salary scale lower than the minimum wage, from which 42% of employees in the sector benefit. Even if employees always receive at least the minimum wage (this is a legal obligation), this phenomenon leads to a flattening of wages at the bottom of the scale and a blockage in the evolution of remuneration.
A necessary “updating” of the minimum wage
However, with more frequent revaluations of the SMIC taking place in recent months due to inflation, those at the bottom of the scale are even more likely to be hit by the SMIC. The hospitality base had also fallen below the minimum wage between the two agreements concluded respectively in 2022 and 2023. A situation that the new agreement made it possible to remedy since the number one level on the scale stands at 11.72 euros gross. Minimum hourly rate (compared to the current 11.52 euros for the SMIC).
While it has legitimized an increase in the salaries of restaurant employees, inflation has also undermined the cash flow of many restaurants affected by both the increase in the price of certain raw materials and energy costs. Especially since the increase in costs and salaries could only be partially transferred to the price of the menus.
More difficult hiring for managers
Despite this, some establishments did not wait for these sectoral agreements to increase the salaries of their staff. This is the case of the Grands Buffets establishment in Narbonne, whose management decisions regarding salary policy were transmitted by Western France.
Since the health crisis, restaurant chefs are facing a labor shortage that forces them to be more accommodating and attractive. A context that gives de facto More weight is given to salary demands, while the scale of the sector has not been revalued since 2018.
If the CFDT, signatory of the last agreement with FO, welcomes this key step in the revaluation of salary scales, the union does not intend to stop there.
“Increasing salaries is a necessary condition to regain the attractiveness of our professions, but it is not sufficient,” confirms Emmanuel Achard, also director of a hotel in Provence. “We need a reorganization that allows both a quality of life at work and a built personal life.”
Source: BFM TV
