Unemployment insurance reform bill under debate in the Senate

Adopted on October 12 in first reading by the National Assembly, this text carried by the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, initially plans to extend the current rules of unemployment insurance, resulting from a disputed reform of the first five-year term. Macron.

It also triggers the possibility, by decree, of modulating unemployment insurance so that it is "stricter when too many jobs are unfilled, more generous when unemployment is high", in the words of Emmanuel Macron during the presidential campaign.

This “modulation mechanism” is currently the subject of consultation between the government and the social partners which is due to end on November 21.

“Favorable” to the principle of this modulation, the rapporteurs Frédérique Puissat (LR) and Olivier Henno (centrist) wished to register it clearly in the law.

A new article provides in the labor code the possibility of modulating unemployment insurance according to short-term indicators.

The rapporteurs have also provided that a jobseeker who has refused three CDI proposals at the end of a CDD during the last twelve months cannot be entitled to unemployment insurance.

They believe that the proposed wording "allows to clearly target the characterized refusal of an employee to engage in a stable job".

In the National Assembly, amendments providing for the same measure had been tabled by Horizons and MoDem deputies, but withdrawn at the request of the government, which wanted to rework such a provision.

It will in any case be debated in the hemicycle, the left accusing the senatorial majority of "toughening up" the government's text. Conversely, LR senators want to go further by reducing the number to a single refused CDI.

As for the provision equating "abandonment of post" to a resignation, introduced in the Assembly by amendments from the presidential majority and the LRs, the senators specified the applicable procedure in order to "secure" it.

The left is upwind against a text that "stigmatizes job seekers and makes them look like profiteers", in the words of Monique Lubin.

The majority communist CRCE group will defend a motion to reject the bill out of hand.

"Cape of parity"

It is especially on article 31 of the text which provides for the extension - at the latest until December 2023, XNUMX - of the current rules of unemployment insurance that the senatorial majority marked its difference with the government in committee.

"We want to give back the hand to the social partners", explained to AFP Ms. Puissat. “We maintain the course of joint action which corresponds to the DNA of the Senate, in the spirit of the Larcher law” of 2007, specified Mr. Henno.

At this point, right and left meet.

The deadline was brought back to 31 August 2023 in committee. This period "should be used to initiate consultations aimed at changing the governance of unemployment insurance", indicated Ms. Puissat.

An amendment repeals the provisions of the Labor Code providing since 2018 the procedure for negotiating an agreement on the basis of a "framework letter" in order to return to a "guidance letter" which "does not preempt the conclusion" .

Another point rectified by the senators in committee: the parameters of the bonus-malus, a device which is intended to limit short contracts. In particular, they excluded from the system the purposes of temporary assignments.

Another part of the bill provides for facilitating the validation of acquired experience (VAE). Senators want to open it up even more.

Once the text has been voted on by the Senate - probably Thursday -, deputies and senators will try to agree on a common version in a joint joint committee. But an agreement is not certain. Especially since the government has tabled amendments to try to reverse the most important provisions adopted in committee.