French social dialogue is often compared to its German neighbour, which is perceived as more effective and more representative. However, trade unions in France retain a certain influence and still have full legitimacy to defend workers’ interests. We asked Sophie Binet about her vision for the future of work and social dialogue in France.
This article is excerpted from the first issue of the journal Mermoz, “Work: Reshuffling the Cards”.
You started your trade union involvement at university, as vice-president of the UNEF. Why did you choose to get involved so early, when less than 3% of people under 30 join a union?
Sophie Binet : I chose to get involved at the age of 15 when I became aware of social inequalities, particularly in terms of academic success. Shocked by this injustice, the only way to live with it was to commit myself to changing this state of affairs. So I started to be an activist in the Young Christian Workers (JOC), then I set up free tutoring classes in my high school and I did tutoring in a housing estate. When I arrived at the university, I joined the UNEF, I became president of the local section, student vice-president of the University of Nantes, and then I was asked to take on national responsibilities. So I was at the national office of the UNEF during the mobilization against the First Hire Contract, and I was then its vice-president.
After years of decline, the unionization rate in France has stabilized at around 10% (8% in the private sector and 18% in the public sector). Yet, there are still many reasons to mobilize. How can we explain this disenchantment between the French and their unions?
S.B. The rate of unionization in France is not representative of the popularity of trade unions, which is very high. The problem is that we have a form of “proxy” unionism. International comparisons should be handled with caution because we do not have the same trade union model in France, where membership is voluntary and militant and does not bring additional rights or services. On the other hand, trade union discrimination is very real and represents the first obstacle to membership, especially for the most precarious. The destructuring of work collectives is a direct brake: the multiplication of precarious statuses, subcontracting, subsidiarization, etc. considerably complicate trade union work to build common demands! French trade union pluralism is not necessarily a lever for membership, on the contrary, history shows that the more trade unions there are, the lower the number of union members! Finally, the unions have work to do to be more proactive in the membership process and to facilitate the involvement of union members with an ever more democratic functioning.
Reviewing the way companies are governed is often cited as a way to reinvigorate trade unionism. But in Germany, too, which is often cited as a model for its co-determination, the rate of unionisation is falling. Do unions need to reinvent themselves?
S.B. Businesses need to be democratized. It is not normal that employees, who are the first to be concerned and the first experts, are limited to occupying folding seats. Employees must be present in all strategic decision-making places, starting with the boards of directors! German co-determination is weakened by the financialisation of the economy, which is why German trade unions are now demanding many more rights guaranteed by law, considering that sectoral or company bargaining is no longer enough. Despite very different trade union histories and cultures, all trade unions around the world are facing similar difficulties due to financialisation and the global explosion of collective labour and value chains. These are challenges we are working on together.
Let’s look at a worst-case scenario, where the unionization rate starts to decline to 5, 3 or 1%. Why would the absence of a union be a problem for employees?
S.B. The absence of trade unions takes us back to the nineteenth century, a time of extreme impoverishment of workers. Let us remember that the economic and technological progress of the industrial revolutions only benefited workers through struggles and unions. If the Germans gained solid social protection more than 50 years before the French, it was not thanks to the goodness of soul of Bismarck but because unions and strikes were allowed, unlike France where it was necessary to wait until 1884 to put an end to the Le Chapelier law which banned unions for nearly 100 years! At a time when we are facing major challenges with the digital revolution and the environmental issue, having strong trade unions is fundamental so that these transformations do not further distort the distribution of value to the benefit of capital!
You recently said that employees must be given back control over the meaning and content of their work. How does this topic go beyond the corporate sphere?
S.B. Regaining control over the meaning and content of one’s work makes it possible to give priority to social and environmental issues over short-term quantified objectives. It is a question of regaining control of our workforce to prevent it from being put at the service of shareholders alone. It is therefore obviously a challenge for the whole of society! This is a very strong aspiration, especially among young people, who, if not taken into account, “branch off” and some leave the business world. Companies will not respond with glossy CSR policies or communication operations. New rights are needed to enable employees to have a decisive voice on strategic orientations and to be able to have alternative projects examined and financed. Without this, it should come as no surprise that employees’ investment in their work collapses and that they have a lucid and disillusioned relationship with it! If you treat them like Kleenex, they will work like Kleenex!
Technological innovation and the integration of environmental issues can be powerful levers to give meaning to work. According to the CGT, they can also call for a reduction in working hours. What are the obstacles to its implementation?
S.B. The reduction of working hours is a long historical movement that logically accompanies technological progress. The question is “who pays for this reduction in working hours?” Is it a collective reduction in working time without loss of wages, organised by law and financed collectively through the wealth we create through our work, or an imposed reduction in working time, with unemployment and precariousness, which results in a fall in the standard of living? For nearly 25 years, employees have been subjected to violent measures to increase working hours, through the relaxation of the use of overtime and four violent pension reforms. The result is that inequalities in terms of working time are reaching record levels, between those who work too much, such as managers who work nearly 44 hours a week on average, and the most precarious employees, especially women locked into part-time contracts, unemployment and precariousness. with salaries well below the minimum wage. To reconnect with the collective reduction of working time is to act on the great distortion of value between capital and labour inherited from the neoliberal turn of the 1980s. It is therefore a major issue, also in the light of the environmental challenge!
After the question of the meaning of work quickly comes the question of its recognition. How can we better balance remuneration and the social valuation of work?
S.B. We must start by paying the work according to its level, recognising qualifications, guaranteeing real career development and increasing the minimum wage, which no longer allows us to live today! Women’s work is particularly devalued with jobs that are underpaid because they are feminized, in which qualifications and real work are not recognized. Caring, educating, assisting… All these functions are not innate for women, they are the result of acquired qualifications that must therefore be remunerated!
At the end of last year, the debate on the immigration law caused a lot of ink to flow. It is indicative of a form of paradox of France in terms of immigration (especially economic), both a historical land of welcome and a place of lively debates on integration. How do you explain society’s tug-of-war between the need for and rejection of immigration?
S.B. The debate on immigration is underpinned by shameful hypocrisy: there are entire sectors, construction, hotels and restaurants, the care of dependent people, cleaning… that only work thanks to the contribution of foreign workers! Strangely, no one talks about foreign doctors, without whom our hospitals would not be able to function… These workers must have an equal right to work – which is why the CGT wants a right to automatic regularisation for all workers – but also the right to live, to have their families by their side and to plan for the medium to long term! The current debate on immigration demonstrates the extent to which the far right is winning the cultural battle and imposing its theses. The victory of the far right in the Netherlands, a country in which both left and right boasted of an extremely restrictive immigration policy, shows that voters still prefer the original to the copy! It is therefore necessary to confront the debate and, above all, to respond to the central concerns of the world of work, wages, employment, working conditions, instead of distracting from the question of immigration and security!
The preamble to the 1946 Constitution states that “everyone has the duty to work and the right to obtain employment”. Do you think that the conditions are right for its application?
S.B. No. There are 6 million people in France who are unemployed and millions more who are locked in precariousness and part-time work. The government sold us a countercyclical policy to adapt the level of entitlements to the unemployment rate. He violently lowered the rights of the unemployed when unemployment was falling, but now that unemployment is on the rise again, he tells us that they must be further degraded! It’s a mockery of the world when only 40% of those registered with Pôle emploi are compensated!
To do this, on January 1st, Pôle emploi became France Travail. The necessary tool, according to the government, to achieve full employment. Will this be a game-changer?
S.B. France Travail promises to be a gas factory, which will degrade the work of agents and the care of the unemployed. Imposing constraints on those who are barely given a living income far from the poverty line, the RSA, is scandalous. At a time when at least a third of people are not exercising their rights, in particular because of the increasing complexity of procedures and the lack of social support, the conditionality of the RSA will be accompanied by write-offs and will once again make it possible to make savings on the backs of the poorest at a time when inequalities are exploding and the ultra-rich are living better and better off their capital. France is becoming a country of rentiers, this is what the government should tackle!