Renault and PSA, laboratories flexibility travail

PARIS (Reuters) - In opening negotiations on their competitiveness in France, Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën have become laboratories of the reform of the labor market on which the social partners are struggling at the moment to agree .

President François Hollande urges employers and unions at national level to agree on greater job security in exchange for greater flexibility in the labor market, otherwise the government will impose its own reform. A decisive round of negotiations will take place Thursday and vendredi.

"The automotive industry is facing a crisis with its unusual violence, is suddenly forced to sit the way it manages its overall flexibility," says the historian Charles de Froment, Institute of business , author of a report on the subject under debate in France over the last ten years, but other European countries began to experiment in the years 1990.

"Now this is really one of the main challenges of the current reform. Trying to do this the automotive industry, it is a better allocation of risk or the need for flexibility over the different categories of employees," says -t-il.

"SOCIALLY INNOVATIVE"

The objective of the reform of the labor market is to improve the competitiveness of the economy and reduce the widening gap between workers with permanent contracts (CDI) and those on temporary contracts (CDD, temporary or sub- contractors), who became a variable adjustment of firms to the vagaries of their activité.

During the 2008-2009 crisis, the automotive industry was first reduced the number of temporary workers to adjust to the collapse in sales. Against relapse in demand after the summer of 2011, PSA was then announced its first social on 6000 job cuts in Europe, including 2,500 in sous-traitants.

"There all realize that this is not even enough, and they are probably at the end of the system. They are now trying to transfer employees to other part of the effort in case of sudden change backlog, "says Charles Froment.

"These agreements are socially innovative direction, which does not arise only at the level of the automotive industry but which we must think more holistically."

MOBILITY POINT DRIVE IN AUTO< / p>

Talks between the two French car manufacturers and their unions have already lasted several months, resumed on Wednesday after the truce holiday season .

Although negotiations will be tough, Renault, which employs about 54,000 people in France, hopes to achieve this month an agreement that would include a new system of temporary secondment of employees between its plants in order to better balance Manning activity levels .

This system would no longer be based on voluntary unlike the current system, should avoid the use of partial unemployment on sites with a lower cadences.

"Renault wants to go far, and we may end up walked from one site to the other without touching benefits currently provided by law, hence the outcry from unions," said Yves Audvard, CGT representative in Renault.

Philippe Very, professor of strategy at EDHEC, however, notes that "the fact that Renault has achieved, for example more than 25% reduction in wages (for new entrants, Ed) in its plants in Spain up the balance of power to the detriment of French employees ".

"If agreements are found in France in the car, it may serve as an example to other areas where, sooner or later, he will have to find ways to more flexible production," ajoute-t-il.

REDUCTION OF "TIME thoughtfulness"

At PSA, which has about 80,000 employees in France, management and unions will enter the thick of discussions about new social plan presented in July by the Group to reduce its costs and surcapacités.

In agreement competitiveness he signed last summer at its plant in Sevelnord (North), PSA has also redefined the rules of mobility on the site and in the region to deal with any air holes the demande.

detachments are also considered factory in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) for some employees while waiting for a rebound in production with the arrival of a new car model 2016.

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Sevelnord, PSA has also obtained a reduction of the "notice period" to install or remove a production team to improve its responsiveness to a volatile market. This time from two months to one month to assemble a team, and two months to three weeks to dismantle une.

At Renault, these delays, which is currently two weeks are considered compatible with the criteria of competitiveness that has set the groupe.

AVOID A NEW AULNAY

The French carmakers are based in part on agreements with Volkswagen, which refer to the secteur.

During the last two decades, the German giant has signed numerous agreements on working time, organization and wages, which allowed him through periods of crisis and take out of the game today in European automotive landscape sinistré.

Patrick Pierron, CFDT representative national negotiations on the reform of the labor market, also cites Volkswagen, but to emphasize the flexibility called for counterparties salariés.

"I think the clause clawback, which provides a return for employees in case of improved activity" dit-il.

"And then there's the anticipation part of the negotiations. Latter is primarily intended to prevent the French economy a new Aulnay know," he adds, referring to the scheduled end of the site Seine-PSA Saint-Denis, the first closure of a factory for twenty French car ans.

Edited by Dominique

Rodriguez