La social democracy within in which civil society actors, especially the social partners, play a regulatory role alongside or alongside the state, has been built up over more than a century. She was mistreated during President Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term and was equally violent during his second.

The role of the social partners in national social reforms has been reduced to consultations or negotiations, which are trapped in the straitjacket of framework letters and leave them too little room for maneuver. And if the same partners manage to reach an agreement, the state will not hesitate to withhold its consent, as it did on Monday November 27th new regulations for unemployment insurance.

Governance through Article 49.3 of the Constitution, including for laws on the financing of social security, prevents the social partners from influencing the parliamentary debate, which itself has been sidelined. And we need complete unity to prevent the instruments created and managed by the social partners, such as: the private supplementary pension fund Agirc Arrco are not collected by the state. Is this the swansong of social democracy in France?

One of the first acts of macronism was the attempt to undermine representative democracy in companies and in places of joint construction with employers: withdrawal from the Committee on Health, Safety and Working Conditions (CHSCT), seat on the Social and Economic Council (CSE). reduced resources. Likewise, the role of trade union organizations was limited, particularly with regard to career planning in the public service.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it was indeed a “social health democracy” that was on the ground to compensate for a failing state. A collection published in October, Given Covid, the challenge of employment, directed by Claude Didry (La Dispute, 220 pages, 18 euros) and the result of research for Dares – the statistical service of the Ministry of Labor – offers a comprehensive panorama in several areas. The public hospital’s perseverance was because the CHSCTs, which had not been dismantled, helped to find practical solutions.

Standards and regulations

If companies also have It is able to preserve work collectives by relying also on the actions of trade unions towards workers who are shaken either by the fear of infection or by the fear of inactivity or isolation. Innovations also came from sectors, for example in the film industry or in construction and public works, in restoring a health approach through collective negotiations within the framework of ad hoc commissions and the development and implementation of health protocols while supporting the desire of employees to recover ; Such approaches were later used in large companies.

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