Reform of french labour code: El Khomri project : no amendment, no negotiation, withdrawal !

The hierarchy of norms

Foreigners may again ironize about french propensity for social conflicts and strikes. An explanation:

There are a multitude of reason (almost as much as articles, would be better to delete the whole project) to oppose the project Valls /El Khomri of reforming the french labour code. One of the most egregious, but seems to me one of the least discussed is the reversal of the hierarchy of norms: previously, collective (industrial branch) agreements had priorities on enterprise agreements and an enterprise  agreement could only offer more favourable conditions than those in the collective agreement; tomorrow if the El Khomri project goes through, a company agreement may impose less favourable conditions in terms of hours, wages or working conditions, if they are accepted by referendum.

It's pretty hopeless, but this primacy of the collective (industrial branch) agreements on individual agreements was a century-old Union fight, for a very simple reason: if it is possible to waive collective agreements, then that is an insane competition at the expense of employees that takes place; the company that has the  greatest difficulty in a sector, maybe because it is the most mismanaged, will impose on employees  reductions in wages or increase in working time quite easily by a blackmail to employment, and gradually the industry will be forced to align them. This is alignment on the less productive and less socially advanced enterprise of a branch ; a social and economical stupidity.

It is obvious how  this reversal of standards is dangerous, and especially in times of economic crisis and high unemployment. Extremely dangerous for employees, it is also bad for the overall economy, by creating a descending spiral. The idea of a referendum by enterprise is also a  liberal absurdity: by the very nature of a working contract, the employee is not free, but subrogated to its employer.

The circle of proletarian positivists : defending collective branch agreements

 Back to my favourite doctrine, Positivism. It is generally ignored but positivism has generated in France an active  labor movement, at the beginning of the 20th century, with figures like Auguste Keufer, (1851-1924), founder of the CGT of typograph  and first Treasurer of CGT Confédération Générale du Travail- the still leading french union)). Here is the position of the circle of proletarian positivists, of which he was the main animator when, between 1906 and 1908, was discussed the creation of the labour code and the ability to sign collective agreements of enterprises (now branch agreements): " the draft law on the employment contract filed July 2, 1906, on the bureau of the Chamber of Deputies is one of the most". important of this Parliament. It calls on the legislature to secure legally the definition, validity, effects and the legal evidence, formation and rupture of the individual contract between the employer and the employee, these last two terms embracing the first, all the patrons, and the second, all the employees. The project concerns workshop regulations, fines, notice period and finally the strike and lock out. It also proposes to give legal value to collective work  agreements to which moves modern industry willingly, under the pressure of unionized workers...

 

Examining the collective contract, or more accurately, the collective agreement on working conditions, the circle of proletarians positivists highlights its three main advantages for the good order of the economic society:

The collective agreement is the only mean to achieve a certain balance between the employer who provides work, and the employee who must work to ensure its existence and that of his family. It can widely moralize competition between employers ; this competition can no longer be exercised with so much intensity on wages and working conditions and thus, the best boss no longer has to suffer from the worst. The collective agreement finally, is especially effective in maintaining or restoring good relationship between employees and bosses.

 El Khomri bill : disorder and regression

Positivism is convinced that it is possible to determine laws of the social body, as there are physical and biological laws. Its best known slogan is "order and progress". A positivist should easily be able to recognize a measure that promotes the progress and social order from  its reverse. All positivist  knowledge leads to this: this El Khomri  bill  is not order and progress, but disorder and regression. In the interest of all, and also in respect for the memory of all those workers who, positivists or not, have struggled for the establishment of the labour law, this project must be fought by all unions and the only issue is :  withdrawal !