Trade Union
In membership terms the French trade union movement is one of the weakest in Europe with only 8% of employees in unions. It is divided into a number of rival confederations, competing for membership. (The main confederations are the CGT, CFDT, FO, CFTC and CFE-CGC.) But despite low membership and apparent division French trade unions have strong support in elections for employee representatives and are able to mobilise French workers to great effect.
Official figures from the national household survey show that there are some 1.8 million trade unionists in employment in France. This means that 8.1% of all employees in France are in unions – the figures are an average for the period 2001 to 2005. 1 In addition the unions have a number of unemployed and retired members, adding another 400,000 to this total.2 The ICTWSS database of union membership estimates union density at 7.6% in 2008.3
Historically, there have been five main union confederations with membership across the whole of the economy. They are the CGT, CFDT, CGT-FO (better known as FO), the CFTC and the CFE-CGC which primarily represents professional and managerial employees. At present, these five are all considered "representative" at national level. This status automatically gives them rights to negotiate or to nominate candidates for elections (for the CFE-CGC this just applies in respect of professional and managerial staff). There are also other union groupings, such as the FSU, UNSA and Solidaires. They have significant influence, but they do not currently have the legal status of the five “representative” confederations, although in specific cases they can ask a court to accord them “representative” status.
However, this situation, which has remained unchanged since 1966, is about to alter. Legislation passed in August 2008 has introduced new criteria for determining whether a union is representative at national, industry and company level. For the first time, these include the requirement to have at least a set level of support from employees in workplace elections – either as indicated by the votes for the members of the works council or, in smaller companies for the employee delegates (see section on workplace representation). Additionally, in companies with 10 employers or fewer, where these structures do not exist, workers will be able to vote for the unions they favour in regional elections every four years. (This change was introduced in October 2010.)
The new law requires a union to win at least 10% of the votes at company level to be considered representative at company level, 8% of the votes at industry level to be considered representative at industry level and 8% of the votes at national level, to be considered representative at national level. However, the votes to be used as the basis of these calculations are the votes in the first round of the elections, when only unions can nominate candidates. Only if less than half those eligible fail to vote for the union nominated candidates is there a second round in which non-union candidates can also stand.
It is unclear whether the new rules will result in any of the existing nationally representative union confederations losing this status, or any new union confederations gaining it. The most recently published figures for works council– those of 2005-2006 – show only two existing nationally representative confederations below the 8% threshold: the CFTC won 6.8% of the votes nationally and the CFE-CGC 6.5%. However, the figures are based on both rounds of the elections and both confederations will have done better in the first round, when non-union candidates, who got 22.6% of the vote in total did not stand. In addition, the CFE-CGC is certain to be seen as nationally representative for professional and managerial employees, as the legislation allows representation for this group to be assessed separately. In the elections for representatives of professional and managerial employees on their own, the CFE-CGE has the highest level of support, with 25.6% of the votes in 2005-06. In terms of possible newcomers, unions not affiliated to the five existing nationally representative confederations got 8.2% of the votes in 2005-06 but this is split between several bodies, including UNSA, Solidaires and others.
The new legislation on representation will only come fully into effect at national and industry level in August 2013. However, at company level they start taking effect as soon as elections under the new rules take place. For example, the works council elections at the French railway company SNCF in March 2009, resulted in the FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC losing their rights as representative unions at company level, as they gained fewer than 10% of the votes.
There is considerable rivalry between the main confederations, but the reasons for the differences are not always clear and there can also be a gap between the political positions put forward by the leadership and those supported by the membership.
Among the three largest confederations, the CGT has generally taken the most militant positions on political and industrial issues, although it does not oppose everything. The policy document approved at its congress in 2006 stated that trade unions need “to act and to demand, to propose and to negotiate, to resist and to construct”. The CGT is also no longer as close to its traditional political ally, the Communist Party. A policy document passed at its congress in 2003 made it clear that the CGT needed to work with a range of political parties and could no longer “support or jointly develop a political project, whatever it might be”.
The CFDT, while working with the CGT and other unions on some issues, has in the past shown that it is more willing to make compromises with the government. This was most obvious over the protests on pensions in 2003 when the CFDT signed an agreement with the government, which the other main union confederations, except CFE-CGC condemned. The confederation defended this position with its general secretary Francois Chérèque arguing that the CFDT is at the centre of a reformist group of unions which “fights to get results”. The CFDT was fully involved with other unions in the national campaign of protest which forced the government to give way on its plans for a new employment contract for young workers in 2006.
The FO includes a wide range of opinions including the socialist party, Trotskyist groupings and Gaullists, although it has consistently taken a vigorous anti-Communist line. In the past the FO was seen as the most moderate of the three main confederations. But in recent years, facing pressure from some FO members and increased competition from the CFDT, it has taken a more militant stand.
The CFTC describes itself as inspired by Christian social teaching and at its congress in 2005 adopted a resolution which identified one of its key objectives as being to ally “economic performance and social justice”.
The CFE-CGC sees its specific role as representing the interests of higher grade employees, such as senior technicians and middle-management.
The organisations currently without “representative” status have a varying history. Solidaires includes some left wing activists, who broke away from the CFDT to form a new group SUD, which is strongest in the railways, telecommunications and the post office. UNSA, the national union of autonomous unions, largely made up of unions in the public sector, although with some in the private sector, includes parts of the once united teachers union. FSU is built around another part of the former teachers’ union, but has other public sector unions in membership.
The new rules on representation could, in principle, encourage union mergers, as unions need to have a certain level of support to maintain their status. There were discussions at national level on a merger between the CFE-CGC and UNSA in 2008 and early 2009, but they failed to reach agreement. However, at company level there have been examples of union alliances, such as at the French railway company, SNCF, where in the elections for the works council in March 2009, FO and CFE-CGC put forward a joint list.
There are two methods to measure the relative support for the separate union confederations – their membership and the votes they get in the various elections for employee representatives which take place in France.
Using the unions’ own figures on membership, the CFDT is in the lead. It states that it had 813,100 members at the end of 2009. The CGT website gives its membership as 700,000 in 2010, while the financial report presented to its congress in December 2009 stated that it had 655,100 paying members in May 2009, divided between 517,500 employed, 6,100 unemployed, 114,900 retired members and 16,600 unclassified. FO does not publish figures but is estimated to have some 300,000. The CFTC states on its website that it has 142,000 members, while the financial report presented to the CFE-CGC’s congress in February 2010, stated the CFE-CGC had 112, 900 members in 2008.
An academic study published in 2007, suggested that the figures were generally lower and that the CGT, with 540,000 members, had more than the CFDT, with 450,000 members.4 However, the CFDT has rejected these figures as incorrect.
In terms of support in the elections, the main test is the five-yearly election of employee members of the employment tribunals, although this only covers the private sector. Here, in the latest elections in 2008, the CGT is in the lead, with 34.0% of the vote, followed by the CFDT with 21.8%, FO with 15.8%, CFTC with 8.7%, the CFE-CGC with 8.2%, UNSA with 6.3% and Solidaires with 3.8%.
All the main confederations are organised on similar lines with a parallel structure of industry federations and geographical groupings, both based on local union groupings. However, although there may be tensions between the different elements, power is concentrated at the level of the confederation.
The decline in overall trade union membership, which was continuous between the mid 1970s and the early 1990s, appears to have been stemmed, with the proportion of employees in unions estimated at an average of 8.1% in the period 2001 to 2005, compared with 8.0% in the period 1996 to 2000. In addition, individual confederations report membership increases. The CFDT reported a 2.3% increase between 2008 and 2009, while the CFE-CGC stated its membership had increased by 14% between 2006 and 2008.
French trade unionism is much stronger in the public sector, where around 15% of employees are in unions (15.2% among those employed directly by the state and 14.7% in state-owned companies and social security provision), than in the private sector, where the figure is only 5.0%.
Despite their weakness in terms of membership, French trade unions have been able to mobilise their members for mass action, and, on occasion, change government policy. The government was forced to withdraw its plans for a new employment contract for young workers in 2006, while in 2010 there were massive demonstrations between September and October protesting at the government’s pension plans. The six demonstrations, which were organised jointly by six union confederations, brought large numbers onto the streets – up to 3.5 million people in the biggest day of protest, according to figures from the CFDT, and up to 1.3 million, according to the police.
