Nearly ten hours of negotiations were not enough for the social partners to find common ground on the very thorny issue of the supervision of telework.
After two days of negotiations and twists and turns, the employers were to send a final text proposal to the unions on Tuesday evening, for a position taken this Wednesday morning with, at the end of the day, a possible national inter-professional agreement (ANI) which would replace the one. from 2005 or an admission of failure ...
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Several participants relaxed their positions in the home stretch, suggesting the possibility of an agreement.
“
As I started the meeting on Tuesday morning, I did not see a favorable outcome.
But finally, there was an opening and the employers seized it,
”explains Éric Courpotin, for the CFTC.
“
Our proposals hit the mark in relaunching final adjustments.
Hopefully we will be heard
”, abounds Catherine Pinchaut, CFDT.
The other union structures are not so optimistic.
Jean-François Foucard, of the CFE-CGC, judges that the current version of the text must go "
in the trash
".
As for the CGT negotiator, Fabrice Angéi notes without surprise as at each end of negotiations "
significant setbacks
”.
In approaching this sensitive site, the task did not promise to be simple as the positions of the two camps diverged.
From the launch of the first discussions at the beginning of June and the elaboration of a simple shared diagnosis, the employers put the brakes on their heads so as not to engage in the field of new negotiations.
And this for a simple reason: Medef, CPME and U2P are convinced that an ANI on the subject would quickly turn out to be obsolete and that it would not be the appropriate solution to supervise teleworking.
This organization of remote work differs from one sector to another, from one company to another or even from one position to another.
Negotiation in the field
In addition, the idea of setting a binding national rule for a minority of workers - around 40% of jobs can be teleworked in France, according to various studies - seems completely obsolete.
The ambition of the employers' camp at the start of the discussions was therefore clear: to remain within the current legal framework (that is to say to remain with the law of 2005) and to continue to negotiate the implementation of teleworking within companies, even branches.
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However, it was without counting on the unanimous demand of the unions and especially on the pressure of the government which wanted to see the framework of the practice evolve, given the epidemic context.
In the absence of common ground and of a formal agreement, the government did not hide that it could subsequently appropriate the subject and legislate as it saw fit.
A threat that could not be more credible that the executive has acted in this way several times since the start of the five-year term.
From then on, given the threat of losing control and to avoid having its choices dictated by others than itself, the employers accepted, willy-nilly, the path of negotiation.
"
They went there backwards and forced because the context does not allow anything else,
" said Catherine Pinchaut.
Simple reminder of the rules
But no question of going against the interests of companies.
The Medef negotiator, Hubert Mongon, was very clear from the start, in September: no question of completely overhauling the framework for teleworking, but simply "to
recall the applicable law and to look into the news questions that arose
”with the crisis.
And if there were to be an agreement, it would be “
neither normative nor prescriptive
”.
For the three employer bodies, the ANI of 2005, its transposition into law in 2012 and the Macron ordinances of 2017 were quite sufficient.
A position reinforced by a note published in November by the Treasury Department according to which the existing legal framework "
seems flexible enough to allow greater dissemination of this practice
".
Better still, social dialogue in the company is even an "
essential lever for setting up teleworking under good conditions
".
In other words, teleworking must be negotiated as close as possible to companies, in the field, to adapt to their specific characteristics.
A line of conduct, recalled by the government on numerous occasions and held by the employers' bodies throughout this last month of negotiations, where they have never ceased to camp their position so as not to lock themselves into a framework restrictive.
“
From the start of the negotiations, there were crippling things like reactivating elements of the ANI of 2005, crushed by the work orders.
We wanted to preserve this freedom acquired in 2017, which offers many more possibilities for teleworking, and therefore we did not want to add constraints or standards for companies
”, explains number 2 of the CPME, Éric Chevée.
A position corroborated in a recent note by the progressive think-tank Terra Nova, little suspect of being too pro-business.
Rather than applying a binding national framework, companies must negotiate the terms in the field with their staff representatives or, failing that, publish
"an action plan if possible concerted or at worst unilateral"
.
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But the unions do not hear it that way.
One of the main points of disagreement relates to the eligibility of teleworking positions.
For employers, this issue is the sole responsibility of the employer.
But for unions, employee representatives must be put in the loop to decide.
To this is always added a myriad of other disagreements on the assumption of responsibility for teleworking costs, the employer's responsibility, the reversibility of teleworking ...
Tuesday evening in his speech, Emmanuel Macron recalled that teleworking should remain the rule
"when possible"
at least until the end of the year, and probably beyond ...