Agreement on mandating of union representatives renewed

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The October 1995 intersectoral agreement on collective bargaining in French companies with no trade union delegates was renewed for a further three years in April 1999, having lapsed in October 1998. The new agreement was signed on the employers' side by MEDEF and CGPME, and on the trade union side by CFDT, CFTC and CFE-CGC.

On 8 April 1999, the intersectoral agreement of 31 October 1995 on the "mandating" by trade unions of employees to sign company-level agreements in companies with no union delegates (FR9807123F) was renewed for a further three years. The original agreement was experimental with a life-span of three years, and had expired in October 1998. The new agreement was signed on the employers' side by MEDEF and CGPME, and on the trade union side by CFDT, CFTC and CFE-CGC. As with the first agreement, neither CGT nor CGT-FO signed.

The new agreement contains provisions identical to those in the original. It enables employers in companies without trade union delegate s - or workforce delegate s carrying out the duties of trade union delegates in those with a workforce of under 50 - to negotiate company agreements:

• with employees formally mandated by a trade union; or

• in the case of measures whose implementation requires, by law, the conclusion of a collective agreement, with elected employee representatives.

These special bargaining procedures apply only if they are laid down in a prior "extended" sectoral collective agreement (covering the size of companies concerned, the issues for negotiation etc). It should be noted that the June 1998 law on the 35-hour week (FR9806113F) contains a mandating procedure which differs from the agreement's provision, insofar as it is not subject to a sectoral agreement and exists solely to reduce working time.

The 1995 agreement was not implemented for more than a year after it was reached, as the legislation making the required legal modifications came into force on 12 December 1996. In light of the fact that this legislation, which was also experimental, lapsed on 31 December 1998, the signatories of new agreement have formally stated that the three-year duration of the deal will be "effective from the implementation of the necessary enabling legislation".

Regular monitoring of the enforcement of the agreement at branch level is scheduled and an appraisal will be carried out during the quarter prior to the end of the agreement, "based on the assessments that sector-level negotiators must draw up when the agreements reached by them expire". In practice, this appraisal could take place at the end of the first two years of the agreement's operation.

Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac of MEDEF stated that he was pleased that an agreement "which develops social dialogue" had been renewed. Michel Jalmain (CFDT) was also delighted at this "innovative agreement, ensuring the advent of trade union representation in small and medium-sized companies". CFE-CGC shares this opinion and considers that the 1995 agreement "was only just beginning to have an impact" and that it should be "given a further three years before its effectiveness, particularly at company level, is appraised." CFTC, which also expressed its satisfaction, demanded the convening of "intersectoral negotiations on company-level social dialogue in order to try to define solutions other than mandating, which is not always the ideal approach".

For those unions which did not sign the 1995 agreement, Maryse Dumas (CGT) "ruled out" signing the renewal of an agreement, which "has failed to renovate collective bargaining and has enabled employers, in eight out 10 cases, to choose the employees mandated", thus posing "a real problem of independence in relation to the employer". While regretting that the initial agreement had not "evolved," Michelle Biaggi (CGT-FO) did not entirely rule out signing, saying that her union first had to study the wording.