Union refuses to sign agreement on diversity in companies

In October 2006, employers and trade unions successfully negotiated an intersectoral agreement on ‘diversity in companies’. Four out of five trade union confederations announced their intention to sign this agreement, which aims to initiate social dialogue on diversity issues in companies with a workforce of 50 people or over. However, 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) has announced that it will not sign the agreement.

Since the end of the 1990s, things have improved with regard to discrimination in employment. Three notable improvements in this area are:

• in October 2004, the charter of diversity (FR0403101N) encourages signatory companies to ‘try to reflect the diversity of the French society through their staff’ by paying particular attention to ethnic diversity among their workforce;
• in 2005, the government created the High Authority for fighting discrimination and promoting equality (Haute autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l’égalité, HALDE) (FR0403101N);
• the use of ‘discrimination testers’ through undercover candidates to check whether organisations promote and apply diversity policies during recruitment (FR0605039I), (FR0606019I).

However, up until now, the issue of discrimination in employment has not been tackled properly through the use of institutional actions. In October 2005, a series of suburban riots in France revived collective awareness of the problem. Following these riots, at the request of France’s President Jacques Chirac, employer organisations and trade unions entered into negotiations on ‘diversity in companies’.

Aims of the agreement

Talks between employer organisations and trade unions reached agreement on 11 October 2006 – eight working sessions and discussions later. The main employer organisation, the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF), made no secret of its desire to conclude an agreement before the year was out. Trade unions, however, were very reluctant to be pressured by time constraints.

The agreement on ‘diversity in companies’ falls under the umbrella of the policies developed at interprofessional level on ‘equality at work’ (FR0504106F) and on ‘promoting employment of older workers’ (FR0512104F). Anxious not to sign an ordinary declaration of intent, trade unions wanted to include some ‘real obligations’. This was to prevent a repetition of the mistakes which were seen in the agreement on promoting employment of older workers – an agreement in which there is no obligation to negotiate, or indeed implement, any provisions at industry level. From the trade union point of view, it is crucial to secure the agreement on diversity so companies can no longer evade their obligations.

The agreement aims to encourage companies to take a stance against discrimination and racism both at the recruitment stage and in the workplace. It is mainly directed at big companies. In companies of 50 employees or more, ‘a committee promoting diversity’ to include the members of the works council, the workforce delegates (délegués du personnel) and the trade union delegates (délégués syndicaux), will need to be set up at the time of the annual meeting of the company’s works council (Comité d’établissement, CE). During this session, the manager of the company will present measures which will ‘review the situation’ and put in place procedures that will guarantee the equality of opportunity, as well as monitor results obtained in the struggle against discrimination.

This measure aims to encourage every company to:

• start up internal dialogue;
• take positive and visible action on an issue that has long been neglected.

Unions not wholly satisfied with agreement

Unions took issue with that fact that the intersectoral agreement promoting diversity in companies does not make the anonymous CVs compulsory (FR0606019I) since, in October 2006, the government decided not to publish the decree regarding the implementation of this measure. Nothing in this agreement compels companies or sectors to open negotiations on this issue, especially – as the General Confederation of Labour – Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail – Force ouvrière, CGT-FO) emphasises – the unions ‘did not get agreement that this enlarged committee should be a consultative body’.

Moreover, information and consultation meetings are not compulsory in companies with less than 50 employees, as the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME) firmly refused to have the new obligations imposed on small companies. Although the unions recognise that real progress was made during negotiations, the draft agreement was met with regret and even discontent.

Ratification of the agreement

The CGT-FO, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) have decided to ratify the national intersectoral agreement on diversity in companies.

However, 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) has announced that it will not sign the agreement, which came as an unexpected, and a nearly unprecedented, move. It has been a long time since the CFE-CGC has refused to sign an agreement of this nature. CFE-CGC asked the other unions not to sign and thereby approve an agreement ‘which introduces a new form of discrimination related to whether one works for a company of less or more than 50 employees’, thus justifying its own refusal to sign the agreement.

Mouna Viprey, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)