Recent Developments in France's Collective Bargaining

1. Before the 1982 Auroux reforms, the last major statutory collective bargaining reform took place in 1950.
   
   
2. The 1950 legislation created a specific institutional framework under which agreements on conditions of employment and social guarantees could be concluded; and it outlined procedures for dealing with collective disputes.
   
   
3. As a result of these provisions, only affiliates of France's five major labor federations (C.G.T., C.F.D.T., F.O., C.G.C., C.F.T.C.) were recognized as "most representative" at national level and thus had statutory rights to negotiate and conclude agreements with employers.
   
   
4. Following the 1968 Grenelle agreement, nationally representative unions are allowed to set up locals in the workplace in firms with 50+ employees. As a result, after 1968 worker representation in the workplace could come from three sources:
   
   
   • Works Councils (1945 legislation)
     
   • Personnel Delegates (1936 legislation)
     
   • Union Delegates (1968 legislation)

5. Until 1971, where industry-level agreements existed, lower-level bargaining were only possible where they took account of particular firm-level characteristics
   
   
6. Where no sector agreements existed, lower-level bargaining was limited to the fixing of pay rates.
   
   
7. In 1971, new labor legislation permits the parties to negotiate agreements at the company level. Still, company level bargaining is rare.
   
   
8. In reality, until 1982, there were only a minority of employers who negotiated at firm level, and most did so on pay rates.
   
   
9. The 1982 legislation applies to all firms in which unions already exist and are recognized as "representative" at national level (as in the 1950 legislation). As such, it applies mostly to firms with more than 10 employees.
   
   
10. The new law makes special provision for smaller firms by enabling them to group together locally -- irrespective of economic activity -- to form joint committees with employer and employee members. These committees can draft and apply collective agreements.
    
    
11. An intersectoral collective agreement on collective bargaining of 31 October 1995, given legal status by the law of 12 November 1996, introduced the procedure of "mandating" (mandatement). This means that in companies with no trade union delegate or workforce delegate fulfilling the duties of a union delegate, an employee can be mandated by a nationally representative trade union to sign collective agreements. The Ministry of Employment and Solidarity puts the number of agreements signed by mandated employees in 1997 at 620.
    
    
12. France's new working time law was passed by Parliament in May 1998, and validated by the Constitutional Council in June.  It sets the length of the statutory working week at 35 hours as of 1 January 2000 in companies employing more than 20 people, and from 1 January 2002 for smaller firms.