Right-wing senators want to promote the employment of older employees with this new type of contract, criticized by the executive and variously appreciated by the social partners.
Is this a sign that Les Républicains want to mark the pension reform with their mark, while the text is being examined in the Senate until Sunday evening midnight? The Senate, with a majority on the right, voted on Monday March 6 for a new type of CDI, the “CDI seniors”, which aims to promote the employment of older employees before retirement.
Introduced in the bill against the advice of the government and left-wing parliamentarians, the device could however be sacrificed during the last legislative stages of this reform. Franceinfo returns in four questions on the contours and the future of this contract, which did not appear in the initial bill.
1 How would this “CDI seniors” work?
Defended by rapporteurs LR René-Paul Savary (LR) and Elisabeth Doineau (UDI), the amendment voted in the Senate by 202 votes against 123 aims to “create an end-of-career contract for the recruitment of employees aged at least 60”is it written in his presentation.
The employer would not be required to keep the employee until he is 70 years old, “cutoff age which today represents a brake on the hiring of seniors”according to the reporters. “Current employment tools for seniors are not enough”says René-Paul Savary, while France is below the European average for employment of 55-64 year olds (56% against 60.5%).
With this new contract, “the employer will be exempt from family contributions, in order to compensate for the cost of a senior employee who, given his experience, can claim higher remuneration than a young worker”specifies amendment LR.
2 Why is the government against it?
The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, gave an opinion “unfavorable” to this new “CDI seniors”. In particular, he wondered about his “targeting”. “I fear a windfall effect that will lead our family branch into the red”, said Gabriel Attal. According to the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, there is “100,000 permanent contracts” which are signed each year for employees over the age of 60.
If all these CDIs were signed with the new contract, the cost is estimated at “800 million euros for the family branch”, defends Gabriel Attal. And might even reach up to “2.2 billion euros” in the event of a windfall effect, a situation in which an employer would proceed with the recruitment despite everything, even without any incentive to do so, which would make the mechanism useless but costly.
However, these family allowance contributions, from which employers could be exempt for employees hired via a “CDI seniors”, are used to finance part of the family branch of Social Security. This manages the payment of the disabled adult allowance (AAH), the activity bonus and the active solidarity income (RSA), for a total of 95.5 billion euros in benefits paid in 2021 by the funds. family allowances, according to the activity report of the Caf.
3 What is the position of the social partners?
They are divided. On the one hand, employers believe that “this measure is going in the right direction”in the words of Eric Chevée, Vice-President of the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME), at West France. According to him, “we can transform mentalities with strong measures”.
The unions are more skeptical of this measure. “It’s a measure, which will in no way encourage companies to hire seniors”sweeps Gérard Mardiné, general secretary of the CFE-CGC, with the regional daily. The “CDI seniors” is a “old recipe” who will do “less cash flow”also denounced Philippe Martinez on franceinfo, Tuesday morning.
4 Does this contract have a chance of being adopted in the final text?
The question arises all the more so since the text currently under consideration in the Senate, and which now includes the “CDI seniors”, is not sure to be voted on before the end of the debates on Sunday evening. Whatever happens, from Monday, seven deputies and seven senators will then try to agree on a version of the text in a joint committee (CMP).
If the CMP is said to be “conclusive”, the text will return to the session of the National Assembly and the Senate to be put to the vote in the middle of next week. If this CMP fails, the text will make a parliamentary shuttle: a new reading in the National Assembly, then in the Senate, and finally again in the Assembly.
Republicans are generally in favor of pension reform, but they want “substantially modify the text to make it a real right-wing reform”, repeated the boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, on Sunday on RTL. With four elected members out of 14 in the CMP (three in the Senate and one in the Assembly), the right-wing party could use the creation of the “CDI seniors” as a bargaining chip to bring the government’s project and its own together. on other points of the reform. The device is therefore not guaranteed to appear in the final text which will return to the hands of parliamentarians in a few days.