Following four months of contestation both on the streets and in Parliament, the bill on labor market reform (c.f. article No. 9575) is approaching its final hurdle when on 05 July the National Assembly will examine the text. In a final attempt at convincing those opposed to the proposed legislative text, the Government met with unions and employers on 29 and 30 June, however to no avail. To facilitate adoption of the text changes were made to bolster the role of the sectors, although these changes have not succeeded in bringing the leftwing of the socialist party back onboard.
Article 2 of the draft law sits at the crux of the disagreements. This article accords primacy to company agreements over sector agreements for issues concerning working time, in situations where a majority agreement has been signed. Seven trade unions (CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires, l’Unef, l’UNL, and the FIDL) red-lined the text arguing it sowed the seed for ‘social-dumping’. Both the President and the Prime Minister have repeatedly stated that they do not intend to revisit the ‘backbone’ of text,
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