Negotiators for French employers and five unions on Friday put forward a series of proposals to simplify and extend benefit-sharing to employees, especially at smaller companies, and several unions said they were in favour. “We are reaching an agreement that must be signed by the majority of the unions,” said Hubert Mongon, leader of the business delegation, after a long meeting.
After several months of complicated negotiations, the Medef, the CPME and U2P on behalf of the employers and the CGT, CFDT, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC unions presented a text to “make the existing systems more accessible” and “continue simplifying the profit-sharing, employee participation and shareholding systems and reinforce their attractiveness”. In particular, it intends to broadly generalize systems such as profit sharing, participation and value sharing bonuses to all companies with more than 11 employees.
“strong signal”
The agreement comes after a dozen meetings and months of negotiations still described as “impossible” at the end of January by the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, in a social context still tense due to the pension reform project, in which unions and employers defend diametrically opposed positions. “We have come a long way”, also estimated Luc Mathieu (CFDT).
“Currently we are in disagreement on the pension reform, but on this essential issue of the distribution of value, where the initial positions were diametrically opposed, we have shown that we know how to argue,” said Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux at the figaro, “It is above all a strong signal of maturity sent by the social partners”. “I don’t forget that I said a few weeks ago that negotiation was impossible,” the Medef chief conceded. But “we are demonstrating that social democracy works when parliamentary democracy does not give the best example”, he judged, greeting a “fundamental” text.
The unions’ national bodies must now decide whether or not to sign the agreement. At this stage, FO said it was in favor and the CFDT “not unfavorable”, keeping the other unions reserved (CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT). Currently, there is participation (mandatory mechanism for redistribution of profits in companies with more than 50 workers) and profit sharing (optional bonus linked to results or non-financial performance), which are accompanied by tax advantages.
Small companies
At the invitation of the government, the employers and unions had been working since November. There are many obstacles, especially among very small, small and medium-sized enterprises (VSEs and SMEs). Despite the relaxations already decided in the Pacte law of 2019 and that of the summer of 2022 on purchasing power, the complexity and ignorance of the systems, the lack of support, the complex formula for calculating participation, administrative risks, etc.
According to the statistics department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares), 88.5% of employees in companies with more than 1,000 people benefited from a shared value scheme in 2020, compared to less than 20% in those with less than 50 employees. The new text provides that companies with between 11 and 49 employees and that are profitable – whose net profit represents at least 1% of turnover for three consecutive years – “launch at least one mechanism” of value distribution from on January 1, 2025. Companies with fewer than 11 employees “have the ability” to share profits with their employees.
In those with more than 50 employees, the participation must “take better account” of the results “obtained in France and presenting an exceptional character as defined by the employer” – enough to respond to controversies about “super profits” to strategy through a largely symbolic formula. The Government, for its part, defends the path of a dividend to employees to compensate for the erosion of purchasing power due to inflation, a concept that the signatories of the agreement on Friday “promise not to support.” A binding law “during the five-year period” was announced in the autumn. In early January, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire promised “concrete proposals” as well as “a convention” in February on this issue.
Source: BFM TV
