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In June 2003, employers' organisations and three trade unions reached a new agreement on France's special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the entertainment industry. The deal imposes stricter entitlement criteria and reduces the benefit payment period. It was met with major protest action by the employees affected and the non-signatory unions. Parts of the agreement were renegotiated in July following an appeal by the Minister of Culture. However, the protests intensified, eventually resulting in the cancellation of two major summer arts festivals.
Over the past 10 years or so, the existence of a special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the cinema, stage and broadcasting sectors (intermittents du spectacle) has been regularly challenged by the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) and its predecessor, the National Council Of French Employers (Centre national du patronat français, CNPF) (FR0304102N). The scheme experienced a 100% increase in the number of benefit recipients during the 1990s and has a steadily growing deficit, reaching EUR 828 million as of 31 December 2002. The scheme is governed by appendices 8 (technical employees and cinema, television and radio workers) and 10 (stage performing artists and technical employees) of the jointly managed general unemployment insurance scheme, the National Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Union nationale pour l'emploi dans l'industrie et le commerce, UNEDIC). These appendices have to be renegotiated by the social partners and approved by the state every three years (FR9704143N). An agreement signed on 10 January 2002 by the main employers’ associations and trade unions - with the exception of the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the majority union in the sector, and the General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO) - extended the scheme and provided for the doubling of employer and employee contributions to 7.4% and 4.2% of pay respectively from 1 September 2002 (FR0210104N). The deal did not challenge either the minimum number of hours required for benefit entitlement - 507 hours or 43 'fees' per year (each fee being counted as equivalent to eight hours), the equivalent of three months’ work - or the benefit payment period - one year.
New agreement
A new agreement on the entertainment industry unemployment insurance scheme was due for negotiation from December 2002, and a draft agreement was finally signed on 27 June 2003 by three employers' associations - MEDEF, the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME) and the Craftwork Employers' Association (Union professionnelle artisanale, UPA) - and three trade unions - 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 accord does not challenge the specific nature of the scheme: schedules 8 and 10 have been renewed and confirmed. However, it imposes stricter entitlement criteria and reduces the benefit payment period for workers in the industry. The 507 hours required for workers to qualify for benefits must now be worked over 10 months rather than 12 months as was previously the case, while the benefit period has been cut to eight months. However, in return, the agreement scraps the reduction in benefits over the period of payment and provides for certain periods of inactivity (physical incapacity, maternity leave and training) to be included in the reference period used to calculate benefit entitlement. It also amends the way that daily benefit is calculated by focusing more on the number of hours worked and less on wage levels. Lastly, the accord cuts the range of jobs and professions covered by the scheme and provides for reinforced monitoring and controls.
Protests mount
As soon as the draft agreement was signed, various types of protest by performing artists and technicians (such as marches, sit-ins and revolving strikes) were organised throughout France, and supported – according to polls – by a majority of the public. The CGT-affiliated Performing Arts Federation (Fédération du spectacle), the largest trade union in the industry and the one spearheading the protest movement, issued a call for a revolving strike beginning on 8 July 2003 - the day that the prestigious Avignon arts festival was due to open - supported by CGT-FO. The CGT union, which had not signed the agreement, demanded that it should be renegotiated. However, those trade unions that had signed the agreement (CFDT, CGE-CGC and CFTC) took the view that they had saved the performing artists' unemployment scheme from possible extinction, despite the fact that CFTC's and CFE-CGC's entertainment sections immediately criticised their confederations for having signed the deal.
Some 200 show-business celebrities sent a letter to the Prime Minister, asking him to postpone giving the government endorsement needed to validate the June agreement, appoint a mediator and undertake consultations before the end of the year. The director of the Avignon festival also asked the government not to approve the agreement. In the face of increasingly hard-line action, the Minister of Culture invited the social partners to review specific provisions of the agreement as a matter of urgency. Thus on 8 July 2003 the same organisations that had concluded the 27 June agreement signed an additional text, providing for: the postponement of implementation of the agreement until 1 January 2004 ; the calculation of the qualifying reference period for benefit entitlement over 11 months instead of the 10 months stipulated in the initial agreement; and the inclusion of some teaching hours (a maximum of 55) in calculating the 507 hours' work required for entitlement. The Minister, for his part, announced funding of EUR 20 million to assist live entertainment as well as a series of anti-fraud measures. In light of MEDEF's determination to keep the underpinnings of the June agreement intact and of the government's resolve to endorse it, industrial action on the part of performing artists and technicians became progressively tougher, finally leading to the cancellation of the major summer arts festivals in Aix-en Provence and Avignon.
Commentary
As two recent reports by the Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) and the General Social Affairs Inspectorate (Inspection générale des affaires sociales, IGAS), have pointed out, the unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the entertainment industry works very much to the advantage of the employers involved. It enables them to organise the sector so as to obtain major labour market flexibility and keep wages down, thus placing them in a strong position with regard to employees. Only a handful of privileged sporadically-employed performing artists and technicians - the most well-known - are able to reverse this subordinate role. Generally speaking, abuses committed by a number of companies (especially in broadcasting, both public and private), which either hire staff on this basis when they are not eligible, or declare only partially the wages of staff that are eligible, are in part responsible for the deficit. Seen from this angle, the agreement struck on 27 June and subsequently amended on 8 July 2003 fails to tackle the structural causes of the deficit. It hits the industry's employees, in particular those whose employment is the most insecure, but fails to deal with the improper and fraudulent practices of certain companies or the more general issue of the system having been hijacked from its original purpose. According to initial UNEDIC estimates, the agreement will exclude approximately 25% of those currently eligible, in particular the youngest amongst them. (Catherine Sauviat, IRES)