Around 60 professional sectors currently have minimums below the minimum wage, instead of 145 in May, according to the Ministry of Labor. According to Antoine Foucher, we should not penalize all companies in a sector that has not yet reformed because some, in fact, are making efforts.
The social conference took place today at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council. To talk about one of the major themes of this day, low wages, franceinfo welcomes Antoine Foucher, specialist in employment issues and president of Quintet Conseil. He was also chief of staff to Muriel Pénicaud at the Ministry of Labor between 2017 and 2020.
franceinfo: The CFDT and the CGT are demanding that public aid to businesses be conditional on updating salary scales. Basically, that exemptions from contributions be reserved for those who play the game, those who have salary scales above the minimum wage. But the government does not seem ready for it, is this normal?
Antoine Foucher: Even if what I am about to say may be shocking, it is normal in the sense that it would be unconstitutional. I will give you a very practical example: a company which plays the game, that is to say which pays its employees above the minimum, but which is part of a branch which does not play the game, it does not can’t do anything. If the industry does not play the game, it is absolutely not at fault. And yet it would be penalized by the fact that it would have less or more reductions in social charges. This is why this subject has been on the table for around fifteen years. It’s a real subject. But making this aid conditional is not the answer. It is not operational so, at a given moment, if the government seeks operational answers, and not “false answers”, it is within its role.
In the meantime, there are 60 professional branches, that’s more than 4 million employees, some of whom are paid just at the minimum wage level for decades, because they depend on salary scales which are all at the minimum wage level. minimum wage. So there is no possible evolution.
No, it’s true, you’re completely right and that proves that it’s a subject. But no company in France has the right to pay an employee – and that’s fine – below the minimum wage. The minimum wage is public order. Which means that even when you have branches which have minimums below the minimum wage, this minimum does not apply. So if you raise the minimum to the level of the minimum wage, it will not change anything since these employees will remain on the minimum wage. And on the question of the flattening of salary scales, that is to say on the fact that you have roughly half of French employees who are paid between 1,000 euros and 2,000 euros net per month, of course the scale would help . But if you are on these salaries, even if you are paid 100 euros net more per month, you will return 39 euros in reduction of the activity bonus and 11 euros in additional income tax. So, even if the employer makes the effort to pay you 100 euros net per month more, there will only be 50 euros left for the
Patrick Martin, president of Medef, said that it was necessary to preserve the competitiveness of companies and therefore not touch these exemptions from contributions which still cost 70 billion euros to public finances each year.
Yes, but it is the condition for reducing unemployment. We can try to raise social contributions again, but each time we have done so, we have increased unemployment at these qualification levels. The trade-off is then made quite easily: if it becomes too expensive, you prefer either not to hire, or to hire an intern, or to hire an apprentice, or to hire part-time, etc. This consequence, it seems to me, is not disputed, it is quite well documented and proven by almost all studies.
According to Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, it’s a day for nothing in the end. You agree ?
I am not far from sharing Sophie Binet’s opinion on this point. Indeed, the social conference emerged from the meeting in Saint-Denis, between the President of the Republic and party leaders. We had to find something a little concrete. It was this social conference that came out and the government only had a month to prepare it. I think they did not dare to put the real issues on the table, namely the fact that in France, work no longer allows you to change your standard of living. They did not dare and perhaps the trade union and employer organizations also did not have the courage to put the real issues on the table.
Why then, does work no longer pay today?
Work no longer allows you to change your standard of living, it’s not me who says that. Everyone can look at it in INSEE statistics for ten or fifteen years. The average increase in purchasing power each year is a little less than 1%. Which means that to double your standard of living, you would have to work 70 years. In the 1950s and 1960s, our standard of living doubled every 15 years. At the end of the 20th centurye century, we roughly doubled our standard of living in one year of work.
“Today, we can no longer change our standard of living. The majority of people do not change their standard of living by working. This is the first time since 1945.”
Antoine Foucherat franceinfo
This is why the subject is massive. So organizing a social conference on this subject was a good idea, but we had to collectively have the courage to put the data of the problem on the table in order to hope to deal with it.
In a word, your solution?
“The only way to make work pay better is to reduce the charges paid by employees and to reduce the income tax paid by employees.”
Antoine Foucherat franceinfo
So for the same work you do, you have more in your bank account. But to do that, we must reduce employee contributions. I repeat: employees, not employers. And to do that, you have to find savings elsewhere. For example, stop increasing retirement pensions each year to the level where it is done. Just for this year, it’s 14 billion euros. It will not be for working people, it will be for retirees, it is a political choice that we can regret.