The government ready to review its copy on unemployment insurance, the unions still back

Decided in July 2019 in a then dynamic labor market, the reform had been suspended in the light of the Covid-19 crisis. It must now enter into force from July 1 in an amended version.

If the tightening of part of the rules, in particular on the opening of rights, is now subject to a "return to better fortune" clause, the provision most contested by the unions will indeed come into force this summer. This is the new method of calculating benefits, less favorable to job seekers who regularly alternate periods of unemployment and activity.

The executive defends an "equity issue", the current system being more favorable to those who alternate short contracts and inactivity than to those who work continuously.

According to Unédic calculations, 1,15 million people who will be entitled to unemployment insurance in the year following July 1 should thus receive a lower monthly allowance than with the current rules (by 17% on average) with at the same time an extended "theoretical duration of compensation" (14 months on average against 11 before the reform).

At the request of Force Ouvrière, the joint body also carried out simulations showing that with the same periods of employment and equal pay, employees who were on short-time work, on sick or maternity leave, would be less well compensated than others. The typical cases show a difference of about a third in the monthly allowance.

It is on this point that the government said it was ready to correct "unintended effects".

"As soon as I learned of this Unédic study, which we received a little late, a few days before the publication of the decree (end of March, Editor's note), I asked my services to make contact with Unédic so that this problem can be solved and that is what we are going to do, "Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Thursday.

"There is no reason to be penalized in your unemployment benefit if you have been on maternity leave or placed in partial activity," she insisted.

"If a new decree is needed to make these adjustments, we will do it," the Ministry of Labor told AFP.

Unions still on the rise

The unions, which have been opposed head-on from the outset to this reform which they deem penalizing for job seekers, especially the most precarious, claim for their part to have alerted the government to this issue for a long time.

"The ministry finds out (the situation) after six months it has been told that in the penalized there will be even more, especially women on maternity leave and those who are on sick leave," said the number one from CGT Philippe Martinez Wednesday evening on France info. "So this is a super unfair reform," he added, recalling that his union is calling for a day of action on April 23.

His counterpart from the CFDT Laurent Berger also assured Thursday that he had "alerted the ministry". "Wanting to reform at all costs, completely in an anachronistic way because we are in the midst of a crisis (...) the government has made a policy of the wet finger. It's nonsense!", He said storm.

He announced that the CFDT, like the other plants, would soon file an appeal with the Council of State against the decree implementing the reform.

For Michel Beaugas (FO), the government's announcements constitute "a first victory" but "do not solve the root of the problem" of the new method of calculation. "We are still determined to have it annulled by the Council of State," he told AFP.

For Cyril Chabanier (CFTC), the announced corrections are "a good thing", but he points to other provisions to be corrected, while Jean-François Foucard (CFE-CGC) creaks that the government is "struggling to do good first try "and should" listen a little more ".

The unions have until the end of May to file their appeals before the body, which will have one month to rule.