Creation of new single operator in public employment service

As part of the recently adopted law on the reform of the organisation of the public employment service, both current entities – the National Employment Agency and the National Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce and its regional branches – are due to merge by 2009. The new single operator will have more wide-ranging tasks than the current bodies. The planned merger has provoked mixed reactions among the social partners.

In March and April 2008, the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Employment (Minstère de l’Économie, de l’Industrie et de l’Emploi, Minefe) drew up several draft decrees with a view to creating a new institutional framework for the public employment service, as defined in Law No. 2008-126 (in French) on the reform of the organisation of this service. The law was adopted by the French parliament (Assemblée nationale) and Senate (Le Sénat) on 13 February 2008.

The reform of the public employment service, as stipulated by law, involves merging the National Employment Agency (Agence nationale pour l’emploi, ANPE) and the National Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Union nationale interprofessionnelle pour l’emploi dans l’industrie et le commerce, UNEDIC), thereby creating a new single operator in January 2009. The new organisation is provisionally called ‘France Employment’ (France emploi).

Changes in public employment services

According to article L.311-1 of the Labour Code – which has been modified with the changes due to be implemented in May 2008 – the new public employment service body must take on the following responsibilities:

• act as a contact point for jobseekers;

• provide guidance on employment issues;

• enable insertion in the labour market;

• help towards rendering career paths secure (FR0710029I).

These new service tasks are in addition to its former public employment service obligations, which related to training, job placement and the attribution of replacement income, that is, unemployment benefits (FR0506105F).

Details of ANPE-UNEDIC merger

During the presidential election campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy promised to merge ANPE – the national public establishment responsible for placing jobseekers – and UNEDIC – the bipartite body that is responsible for paying benefits to unemployed people who have lost their jobs, and for proposing support in terms of training. The merger, which is planned for 2009, is also to include the regional branches of UNEDIC, the Associations for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Associations pour l’emploi dans l’industrie et le commerce, ASSEDICs).

UNEDIC is managed by three employer organisations: the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME), the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF), and the Craftwork Employers’ Association (Union professionnelle artisanale, UPA). In addition, five trade union confederations play a part in managing the agency: the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff – General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l’encadrement – confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC), the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and the General Confederation of Labour – Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail – Force ouvrière, CGT-FO).

Role of new public employment service

The new national public organisation, ‘France emploi’, will be a legal entity and will also be financially independent. It will have six tasks, namely to:

• examine the labour market;

• be the contact point for jobseekers, as well as inform, guide and support them in their job search;

• register jobseekers;

• provide unemployment benefits and welfare benefits (aide de solidarité);

• collect, process and disseminate data, as well as make these available;

• help and support jobseekers in cooperation with local authorities.

The new institution, which is the result of the merger of a national public body – ANPE – and a national bipartite body – UNEDIC – will have a board that is composed of:

• five state representatives;

• five employer representatives;

• five employee representatives;

• two experts;

• one local authority representative.

The board’s role will not be to manage the institution, but to deliberate on the definition of the single operator’s task and also on the guidelines which are set out in the tripartite agreement. The latter will be drawn up in 2008 and should define the:

• profile of jobseekers, who have priority in receiving help from the single operator;

• objectives to be achieved regarding services provided for jobseekers;

• the development of the new agency’s local organisation. In the framework of carrying out a public employment service, not only the single operator resulting from the ANPE–UNEDIC merger is involved, but also state services responsible for employment and gender equality in employment, such as the National Adult Vocational Training Organisation (Association nationale pour la formation professionnelle des adultes, AFPA) and town councils;

• conditions for assessing the actions of the single operator.

Budgetary resources and expenditure

The new organisation’s financial resources will come from the social contributions paid by the employers and workers. The contributions will first be collected by the Agencies for the Collection of Social Security and Family Allowance Contributions (Unions pour le recouvrement des cotisations de Sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, URSSAF) (FR0503104F) and, from 1 January 2012 onwards, by the Central Agency for Social Security Organisations (Agence centrale des organismes de Sécurité sociale, ACOSS).

In terms of expenditure, the single operator will have distinct budgets with ceilings for:

• unemployment benefits which will be awarded to jobseekers who have lost their jobs, according to the rules set out in the joint agreement drawn up by the employers and worker representatives;

• welfare benefits and help given to jobseekers by the State and the National Solidarity Fund;

• the running costs of its organisation.

Staff

Some 45,000 ANPE employees with a civil service status and UNEDIC/ASSEDIC employees covered by private labour law will be transferred to the single new operator. The latter will negotiate a collective agreement by 2010, which will apply to all new recruits, as well as to the employees who transfer to the new institution under the current UNEDIC agreement. The agreement will also cover ANPE staff, who will have one year to decide whether to choose to be covered by private labour law or to keep their civil service status.

Social partner reactions

Some of the trade union branches organising ASSEDIC and ANPE staff have taken repeated strike action, since they oppose the merger and wish to keep the job of collecting social contributions.

At trade union confederation level, CGT and CGT-FO led the opposition to the merger. Besides being concerned about the situation of the civil servants and employees covered by private labour law, CGT is alarmed about a ‘merger which will speed up the consolidation of controls and penalties for the jobless’. The national confederal committee of CGT-FO also condemns the merger as a source of ‘confusion between the task of finding a job for unemployed people and that of providing them with benefits’, which will impose greater penalties on workers who have lost their jobs. The CGT-FO committee added that it ‘jeopardises the unemployment insurance scheme and the bipartite approach that prevailed when it was created’.

The National Secretary of CFDT, Annie Thomas, who is in charge of this issue and who was chair of UNEDIC a few months previously, stated that she was fairly satisfied with the changes made to the law, but had strong reservations concerning the implications for AFPA.

On the employer side, MEDEF’s President, Laurence Parisot, regrets that the law provides for attributing at least 10% of UNEDIC’s resources to the new institution’s running costs, as the advantage of having a new single employment service was for it to cost less than the current organisations, ANPE and UNEDIC.

Commentary

The merger of the public organisation ANPE, which is responsible for placing jobseekers, and the bipartite bodies UNEDIC and ASSEDICs, which are responsible for providing benefits to unemployed people, raises problems at different levels both for the staff and for managing the future single employment service. The difficulties related to the merger are accentuated by the current tension between MEDEF and its metal-industry affiliate, the Union of Metallurgy and Mining Industries (Union des industries métallurgiques et minières, UIMM). Traditionally, the two employer organisations and a trade union took turns in chairing UNEDIC. Legal proceedings are currently underway against UIMM, which has been taken to court and whose leadership is implicated in the charges. As a result, Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac had to resign from his position as president of UIMM and vice-president of MEDEF.

Moreover, some experts in the field question the efficiency of the services provided for jobseekers. Some of these persons will have the new operator France Emploi as their only contact point, while those receiving the minimum integration income (Revenu minimum d’insertion, RMI) will have departmental bodies as their contact point.

Finally, at a time when the so-called law on modernising the economy is due to be adopted, namely in the spring of 2008, these transformations in the public service are perhaps a sample of policies that the government intends to pursue.

Benoît Robin, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)