Less license, more pay? In his speech, what happens to François Bayrou, who presented the government’s plan to release 44 billion for BUGET 2026, Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet asked for more to work more.
Because more work also means more contributions and samples for the State and, therefore, of tax revenues that increase. To get there, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet offers social partners to negotiate. It evokes “an incitement objective to increase working time, in a context in which four out of 10 employees have overtime, for example, the possibility of monetizing the fifth week of paid license.”
“I would have thought about that if I had the option”
Therefore, the idea of this proposal would allow, within the framework of an agreement of the company, an employee voluntarily renounces its fifth week of license against the corresponding remuneration. Today, it is already possible to “buy” your RTT days, but not your paid vacations.
But then the workers are ready to give up a week’s holidays for the salary of a week? Some are categorical, such as Sibylle, employee: “No, I will not, because I want these 5 weeks. I prefer to go on vacation just to have this money,” he explains to BFMTV.
Others, like Corentin, would not be against that because it does not state that many are left, at the risk of losing them: “This year, there would have been four/five days of license that I would have preferred to pay me instead of putting them. In any case, I would have thought about that if I had the option.”
Towards a job to win more (and consume more?))
On the boss’s side, we prefer to see the interest: “It is always good to take, instead of closing the box completely, we could have weeks to work or that there are less weeks of closing,” testifies Maxime, manager of a small business, with BFMTV.
“This proposal offers purchasing power, will consume, will grant activity for certain leisure sectors,” explains Caroline Diard, management teacher and human resources and labor law. “But paradoxically will also reduce consumption time.”
And I’m not sure all companies can configure it. “Some will not necessarily be the possibility of organizing it because they are small structures. The concept of size and level will play,” he says.
The fifth week of paid vacation was established more than 40 years ago by Pierre Mauroy, in the government of François Mitterrand of 1982. And the unions fear their interrogation.
“Museum of horrors” of government ideas
For Denis Gragoul, Confederate Secretary of the CGT, “vacations are also used to rest, to rebuild their workforce, to allow exploiting, all these values are not only financial values.”
The leader of the CFDT, Marylise Léon, believes that this possibility is part of the museum of horrors “of government ideas.
Life levels will also influence the choice to change their vacations against paid work. “When you are in the minimum wage and you have trouble paying your rent, the monetization option will be done, while someone more comfortably installed will prefer to have time,” explains Caroline Diard.
“This possibility could become a restriction”
The concept of inequalities also appears in this proposal since according to the profession: “If there is no dialogue with social couples, this possibility could become a restriction. We can imagine that there are forces that are penalizing.”
However, the Minister of Labor wishes to reassure: the proposal to “monetize the fifth week of paid license” is “a new right”, which “would remain at the hands of each employee,” he says.
Among the 27 European countries, 14 have only 4 weeks of license.
Source: BFM TV
