Employers presented unions with a draft agreement on the employment of older people, ahead of a negotiation session on Tuesday, which includes a provision on progressive retirement, according to a document obtained by AFP from the unions.
Progressive retirement, currently not very widespread in France, aims to allow employees who request it “to benefit from a fraction of their retirement by carrying out reduced professional activity”, this document recalls. According to the draft employer agreement, “the system is accessible from the age of 60,” while the legal retirement age must be progressively increased to 64 years. Today, the system is only accessible two years before the legal age.
Facilitated access to progressive retirement responds to a request from the unions who want it to become an enforceable right, that is, one that cannot be denied by the employer to the employee who requests it. However, the draft agreement stipulates that the retirement contributions of employees in progressive retirement “will be calculated on the basis of the full-time equivalent salary”, but “subject to the agreement of their employer”.
Recruitment, job retention and accommodation
The document also takes up several measures already discussed during the previous negotiation on the employment of the elderly, which failed in spring and led to the resumption by decree of the unemployment insurance reform by the Attal government. Regarding the employment of older people, professional sectors would be obliged to negotiate at least every four years, and companies with more than 300 employees every three years.
The mid-career interview conducted in the year in which the employee turns 45 would be “reinforced” and organized “within a maximum period of two months after the mid-career medical examination.” The questions addressed during this interview would refer to skills, training, desires for mobility, actions to prevent “disintegration and professional burnout.”
Finally, to facilitate the hiring of older unemployed people, employers want to create an “experience enhancement contract” to compensate for a possible loss of salary compared to the job previously performed by the job seeker using his or her rights. This contract also states that the employer can automatically retire the employee as soon as he or she is able to leave at full salary.
The social partners must negotiate before mid-November an agreement on the employment of older people and another to define new unemployment compensation rules.
Source: BFM TV
