Purchasing power: government increases tone towards branches late on minimum wage

The bill on purchasing power, to which “Le Monde” has had partly access, provides that the State will be able to “merge” the branches that are slow to adjust their remuneration grid to take into account the ‘SMIC evolution.

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The government increases the tone with regard to professional branches which are slow to adjust their wage grid to take into account the evolution of the minimum wage. State services will be able to carry out their “administrative merger” by invoking the lack of responsiveness they have shown.

This provision is provided for in the bill relating to the preservation of purchasing power, to which Le Monde had, in part, access. It is more a precision provided to the regulatory arsenal than a revolution. But the measure clearly aims to put the sword in the kidneys of employers’ organizations which show little eagerness to develop their collective agreement.

Of the 171 branches followed by the Ministry of Labor, 120 displayed, in mid-June, a grid containing at least one remuneration coefficient lower than the minimum wage. These situations of “non -compliance” are linked to the fact that the minimum wage has been revalued three times since the fall of 2021 – of which twice in an exceptional way to take into account the acceleration of inflation (one at 1 ER October 2021 and the other at 1 ^{er May). Faced with these revisions upwards in a relatively close period of time, the social partners of many sectors of activity have not managed to adapt the texts which frame the remuneration in their field.}

The incited branches to accelerate negotiations

In the price of price runaway, “the whole challenge for the branches is to succeed in negotiating quickly to reassess wages”, as indicated by the presentation sheet that accompanies the bill. And to add: “The economic situation therefore particularly puts the branches under tension and obliges them to review their pace of negotiation.”

To encourage them, the government intends to “activate the lever for branch restructuring”. At present, the administration already has the possibility of ordering the merger of a branch which is distinguished by a reduced “conventional life”, that is to say which negotiates very little agreements and on a Number of themes restricted. But, in the current state of the law, “non-compliance with the minimum wage does not appear to be a sufficient criterion to authorize” the State to perform this act of authority, according to the presentation sheet.