www.tbs-education.fr

SNOVE Final Dissemination Event Kauniainen, 19-20 September

2013

French perspectives on support for older and vulnerable

employees

Jessica GrandhommeFrançoise Le Deist Jonathan Winterton

Toulouse Business School, FR

Overview

• Introduction

• Economic context in France

• Effects of restructuring on work and workers

• Actions of stakeholders

• Stakeholder perspectives

• Workers’ voices

• Conclusions

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Introduction

• Limits to trade union action to combat precariousness and vulnerability

• Paradoxes in relation to precarious work and vulnerable workers:

• Trade unions are least able to protect jobs when they most need to – militant action fails in recession.

• Those who most need trade union support are least likely to be organised – difficulty of organising vulnerable groups.

• Matthias Principle: those who most need training are least likely to have opportunities

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Economic context in France

• Current restructuring wave is the most significant since (and potentially more serious than) the Great Depression

• Layered effects of global shift that began in 1980s, GFC 2008 and SDC 2010

• Job losses concentrated in DE, FR and UK but affecting all EU MS

• Over-capacity > high profile cases in France:

• PSA (Peugeot Citroen) car plant in Aulnay

• Petroplus refinery in Petit-Couronne

• ArcelorMittal blast furnaces at Florange

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Effects of restructuring on work and workers

• Affects those already vulnerable and brings more into the categories of precariousness and vulnerability

• Job insecurity and job losses associated with ill health

• Work intensification and extensification (karoshi)

• Suicides related to work overload (karojisatu)

• Insecurity, uncertainty and fear of job loss are as damaging to health as actual job losses

• Work organisation that involves high demands and low control > job strain when support is low

• Work stress clearly increased since 1990s and has accelerated since the recession

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Actions of stakeholders in France

• State and intermediary organisations:

• Extensive involvement of public and private agencies

• Contradictions in policies (migrants, youth, low skilled…)

• Employers exhibit considerable diversity:

• Vulnerable workers low priority in economic crisis

• Large employers more likely to have inclusion strategies

• Trade unions:

• Less ambivalence and exclusion of non-core employees than in UK but low level of unionisation in general

• Inclusion strategies for undocumented migrant workers ‘maximum risk and minimum voice’ (Meardi et al, 2012)

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Stakeholders’ perspectives

• State and intermediary organisations:

• Emphasis on individualised support and social competences

• Urgent action to combat LTU and social exclusion

• Employers:

• Importance of internal organisation (Airbus, SNCF)

• Contradictions over handicapped and low skilled youth

• Increasing use of non-standard work and migrants

• Trade unions:

• Priority groups: youth with low Q, seniors, migrants

• Seasonal (CFDT) , handicapped (CFTC), sans papiers (CGT)

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Workers’ voices

• Older workers:

• Age discrimination, culture of early retirement

• Very critical of Pôle Emploi, need for individualised coaching and psychological support

• Unemployed youth:

• Foreign nationals, unqualified, low level of French

• Lack of training opportunities available (resource issue)

• Workers with handicaps:

• Length of time out of employment exacerbates problems

• Cap Emploi provides tailored support adapted to individuals

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Role of training and development

• Social dialogue arrangements over workforce training plans could offer opportunity for more union action

• Changing emphasis from opposition to job losses to seeking training for employability and adaptability

• Union-led learning in UK focuses on employees with low levels of educational attainment needing basic skills

• Successful in bringing non-traditional learners into training including migrant workers but depends on workplace union

• Potential to improve competitivity and job quality with sustainable high involvement ‘anthropocentric’ work

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Conclusions

• Union-led learning can address all three paradoxes associated with vulnerability and precariousness:

• Union-led learning engages disadvantaged groups

• Can be used as an organising tool to raise unionisation

• Integrative (positive sum) bargaining over restructuring

• Limitations:

• Limits to consensus on training as interests not congruent

• Management support is crucial at operational level

• Learning agreements needed to institutionalise actions

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