Remoulding workers' rights: French plastics maker puts Macron reforms to the test

Record ID: 1437840

  • Title: Remoulding workers' rights: French plastics maker puts Macron reforms to the test
  • Date: 21st October 2019
  • Summary: MAUBEUGE, FRANCE (FILE - NOVEMBER 8, 2018) (REUTERS) FRENCH PRESIDENT, EMMANUEL MACRON, SHAKING HANDS WITH EMPLOYEES AT RENAULT FACTORY MACRON LISTENING TO WORKERS MACRON LISTENING, SHAKING HANDS WITH WORKER PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - JUNE 27, 2017) (REUTERS) FRENCH PARLIAMENT BUILDING PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 12, 2016) (REUTERS) PARLIAMENT SIGN WITH FRENCH FLAGS
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2019 11:22
  • Keywords: France labour reforms Emmanuel Macron performance collective agreement 35 hours sick leave plastics
  • Location: MENETOU-RATEL, MAUBEUGE AND PARIS, FRANCE
  • City: MENETOU-RATEL, MAUBEUGE AND PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Lawmaking,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA002B21IPTZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Last year, Brice Thomas, a worker at a French plastics factory, gathered together his fellow workers in the plant's finishing workshop and told them that, at a meeting with bosses, he had signed away some of their paid sick leave.
    But ultimately, the workers agreed to the change - and a series of other dilutions of their employee protections - because, they said, they trusted the bosses and they understood the plant needed to be competitive in a tough global market.
    The outcome at the plant was possible because two years ago French President Emmanuel Macron pushed through measures aimed at liberalising France's highly regulated labour market and reducing the nearly double-digit jobless rate, double that in Britain and markedly higher than Germany.
    Macron has not yet achieved his aim. Only 200 companies have so far adopted the type of agreement used at the plastics plant, and on a national level Macron faces fierce resistance from trade unions.
    However, the case of Plasti-Tremp, a family-run business near Sancerre, a picturesque French village famous for its wine, offers a glimpse of the changes that are possible when Macron's reform drive aligns with interests on the ground.
    The firm specialises in plastic coating, such as the concertina-shaped covers that go round vehicle gear shift sticks, and puts the plastic hand grips on metal pliers.
    Competition is from China and eastern Europe for its low-value-added products, and from Germany and Scotland for more sophisticated components. French labour regulations push up costs.
    "While I'm walking at a certain pace, the world is running", Jean-Pascal Godon, who created the company with his wife in 1986 on a part of his father's farm property, said.
    That is why, when Macron's Labour law reform came along, he took advantage of it. His company was one of the first to sign a performance collective agreement, a tool that allows him to adjust salaries and working hours, and to increase mobility without having to prove he faces financial difficulties.
    Workers who refuse changes can be laid off, and can't challenge their dismissal in an employment tribunal.
    Working time at Plasti-Tremp went from 35 hours to 39 hours a week. The company also stopped fully compensating the first few days of sick leave to reduce non-justified absenteeism among workers.
    If business lawyers and employers federations applaud those changes, trade unions fear for their cherished protection system that limited the ravages of an uncontrolled free market.
    "People from all around the world envy our system, and we are dismantling it", a senior official at Force Ouvriere union, Michel Beaugas, said to Reuters.
    Still, Joseph Tayefeh, the head of Plastalliance, an employer federation for the plastics sector, defended the agreement, saying workers' purchasing power has increased as a consequence of past companies signing the accords.
    "We could say that we're in a win-win relationship," he said.
    (Production: Thierry Chiarello, Clotaire Achi, Ardee Napolitano, Caroline Pailliez)
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