Thales: European framework agreement on the annual activity discussion

Opposition from the French CGT. This agreement applies to managers and employees inside the scope of the EWC (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Norway, the UK and Switzerland). It was negotiated by the management and a special negotiating body composed as the one that negotiated the group’s first European agreement on anticipation and professional development in June 2009 (see our dispatch No. 090629), i.e. two EMF representatives, the EMF coordinator of the EWC, one union representative per country (Germany, Spain, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands) and three French representatives (1 CGT, 1 CFDT, 1 CFE-CGC). As part of the consultation launched by the European trade union, in accordance with its internal procedure for transnational bargaining (see our dispatch No. 06653), the CGT’s metal federation (FTM-CGT) was the only trade union to express a reserved opinion. It said that “the substantial gap between the agreement and the proposals and objectives pursued by our organizations in this negotiation” and the “bargaining methods used (…) doesn’t enable making up a European trade union point of view via a reference text to oppose to the management’s plan, or ensuring a careful round trip to involve our unions at the appropriate level.” However, this reserved opinion will not prevent the organisation to be pro-active in the framework of the agreement implementation in France, explained the CGT negotiator because the "potential proposals are interesting”. Further to this reservation, the EFM had to check that the other French organisation would gather a 2/3 majority at the social elections, a necessary condition to be able to legitimately sign the agreement.