About the French debate on flexibility: two contradictory approaches Bernard Friot, WZB Berlin June 2007

the Cahuc-Kramarz (CK) Report De la précarité à la mobilité: pour une sécurité sociale professionnelle, 2004 the CGT demand for a « new status of the salaried labour » (nouveau statut du travail salarié) (CGT website)

the heterogeneity of the salaried workforce CK: inequalities in work contracts and employment security CGT: fragmentation, breakdown of labour collectives due to employers’ strategy of subcontracting or creating subsidiaries

CK: single type of employment contract for all jobs (the worker could be laid of without written justification during the first two years with a severance pay equal to 10% of the received wages, followed by the traditional guaranties of long term contract; the right to a new job would be mentioned in the work contract and guarantied by the public employment service; increase in unemployment benefits.

CGT: a single form of work contract which would be long term contract assuring the right to a career through an unbroken series of contracts; real salary would double over the course of the career; increase in qualification; 10% of paid work time would be devoted to training; the work contract would remain in force between jobs until a new job is found which is at least as qualified as the previous one.

What would be transferred from the job to the worker himself ? CK: access to a job and consequently reinforcement of the public employment service CGT: work contract (with unbroken increase in qualification and salary, mobility made possible by training)

Roles for employers and employee representatives ? CK: the employer alone decides on lay off, which are considered legitimate as long as the employer pays a tax to the public employment service equal to 1,6% of total salary paid to laid off workers. No employer responsibility for finding a new job. Employee representatives would intervene only in policies designed to prevent lay off (training…) CGT: employer responsibility (workers keep their contracts until they find a new job), employee representatives check that the right to the career is respected for each employee when they are hired and at all points of their career, including when they change jobs

Who the third party of the work contract ? CK: the public employment service; the service profiles the unemployed according to the degree of employability; it selects specialised agencies and pays them on third when the unemployed person arrives, a second when the person finds a job, and the last third six moth later, if the person is still working. CGT: employee representatives in the firm, the industry, the company, the work site and the employment district control the respect of the right to the career; the OSS fund collects contributions from employers which pool the costs associated with the right to a career (part of the salary associated with seniority in the career, training during work time, salary between two jobs).

What are the outcomes of these two approaches ? CK: creating the labour market - CGT: abolishing the labour market

CK: creating the labour market through a stronger Public employment service There is no labour market without strong government intervention that guaranties the price and the quality of the labour forces. Workers’ access to capital markets for a funded pension (purchase of financial securities rather than taking refuge in small scale real estate) presupposes that they can anticipate a public pension of a decent level. Similarly workers’ access to the labour market (repeated periods of unemployment rather than taking refuge in internal labour markets) presupposes public intermediation that guarantees that they will be able to find decent new jobs.

CGT: abolishing labour markets by attributing an employment contract to the individual There is no labour market without an available labour force. If the employment contract is attributed to the individual worker, the work collective is an attribute of the worker (cf. the fading of the employer’s character in companies), as well as his qualification, his seniority, and therefore his salary, his right to training, his right to a voice within the organization. There is no a workforce detached from the person of the worker.

The characterization of the worker. CK a professional CGT a salaried worker

CK The professional is an individual with rights that “equip” the market. He regularly tests his employability through recurrent periods of dealing with the public employment service which measures his distance from employment (this is diametrically opposed to any notion that qualification is linked to the person) and the public employment service gives him individualized services that will lead him either to become still more effective on the labour market or simply give him access to a “decent” job.

CGT A salaried worker is an individual who receives a salary The salary is bound to double over his career and therefore he has a qualification and a right to promotion, a place within a work collective, rather than a relationship with an employer.