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In June 2002, the MEDEF employers' confederation and three trade union confederations (CFDT, CFTC and CFE-CGC) signed an agreement which doubled employers' and employees' contributions to the special unemployment benefit scheme for sporadically employed entertainment industry workers. The aim is to address the scheme's chronic deficit. The CGT and CGT-FO union confederations refused to sign, and the reform has brought protests from entertainment workers and the industry's employers' association.
A special unemployment insurance scheme for sporadically employed workers in the entertainment industry was set up in 1969 to enable performers and technical staff in the cultural sector (manual and technical workers in cinema and television, and artists and technicians in the performing arts) to receive unemployment benefit despite their often uneven pattern of employment. However, over time, this benefit scheme has contributed to radical changes in the industry's recruitment practices. There is currently massive reliance upon, and sometimes abuse of intermittent work (travail intermittent) - ie periods of activity alternating with periods of inactivity. Employers' fondness for this form of employment explains the scheme's financial imbalance. The number of benefit recipients has doubled over the past 10 years and in 2001, benefits worth EUR 838 million were paid out, compared with EUR 100 million received in contributions - a deficit of EUR 738 million.
The special entertainment industry scheme falls under the aegis of the jointly managed national unemployment insurance scheme, the National Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Union nationale pour l'emploi dans l'industrie et le commerce, UNEDIC). In order to reduce the size of the entertainment scheme's deficit, in June 2002, UNEDIC - with the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) employers' confederation at the forefront (as it had been in previous attempts to reform the scheme - FR9704143N) - adopted a programme of cutbacks. These provided for entertainment employers' and employees' contributions to double (rising from 5.6% to 11.6% of pay).
The June 2002 agreement was signed by MEDEF, and three of the main trade union confederations - the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the French Christian Workers' Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and 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 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) refused to sign, with CGT asserting that 'this narrow penny-pinching vision of unemployment benefit for sporadically-employed entertainment industry workers ignores the special features of the professions in question.'
An unusual feature of this dispute is the stance adopted by the Stage, Music, Television and Cinema Companies Employers' Federation (Fédération patronale des entreprises du spectacle, de la musique, de l’audiovisuel et du cinéma, FESAC) which, on this issue, is openly opposed to MEDEF and even goes as far as to share the positions of the CGT entertainment industry branch federation. FESAC argues that the increase in contributions may jeopardise the finances of many companies involved in putting on entertainment. Like CGT, the employers' association fears that doubling the unemployment insurance contributions might be the precursor of a move to integrate sporadically employed entertainment industry workers into another UNEDIC scheme covering temporary agency workers, a scheme which is substantially less beneficial than that enjoyed by the former.
To lower the temperature, an audit of the sporadically employed entertainment industry workers’ scheme has been commissioned by the Culture Minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon. This audit is to present its findings before the end of November 2002, which will also be the point at which negotiations on the renewal of the current general UNEDIC unemployment insurance agreement, which created the 'back to work assistance plan' (Plan d’Aide au Retour à l’Emploi, PARE) for unemployed people, will resume (FR0101114F). Pending the auditors' findings, a demonstration took place on 16 September 2002, involving almost 3,000 entertainment industry employees demanding the retention of the current unemployment benefit scheme. However, this system, as the general secretary of the CFDT communications and cultural industry federation (FTILAC-CFDT) points out, raises problems, as the current entertainment industry 'is in large part built on the unemployment benefit scheme covering its employees'. This is a dispute which, as observed above, somewhat disrupts the traditional positions of the trade unions.