The government announced on Monday, at the close of the social conference, that it intends to make exemptions from employer social contributions conditional on raising minimum rates that fall below the Smic in certain professional sectors. This approach targets sectors whose collectively agreed wage floors remain below the minimum wage.
For the managers’ confederation, raising sector minimums as a condition of employer contribution exemptions is a lever, but not a guarantee against the compression of pay scales. The union now expects employers to translate this commitment into sector-level negotiations.
Christelle Thieffinne, president of the CFE-CGC, said on Monday that the boost to the Smic announced by the government was “not equal to the challenge.” A guest on franceinfo, she said she did not want to “see a compression of pay scales” or “a drift of the country toward minimum-wage status.”.
Christelle Thieffinne welcomed an initial step forward. “We managed to get a first foot in the door,” she said, linking the announcement to the pressure exerted at the social conference. The union leader thus places the debate beyond the mere increase in the minimum wage. In her view, the challenge is to avoid a flattening of pay that would bring all pay scales closer to the Smic and reduce the gaps between qualification levels.