Would eliminating a contract that is inherently precarious risk making permanent contracts, which are the holy grail of job security, more precarious? This is a question that has come up for decades, each time a right or left force proposes a change in the limits of the fixed-term contract, or even its abolition. Already in 2004, the newspaper Release underlined an ideological alignment of the planets pro-abolition of the short contract, both among the Sarkozysts and… in the Socialist Party. In a post, the social-democrat daily already denounced a “false good idea”. What about it?
Liêm Hoang-Ngoc, former MEP of the Socialist Party and for a time close to La France insoumise, then to Fabien Roussel, is an economist, author ofA rebel should say that… published by Éditions du Cerf (2017). For Mariannehe returns to the relevance of the idea of abolishing the CDD, and the pitfalls which punctuate this seemingly attractive idea for precarious workers.
READ ALSO : Stellantis: Carlos Tavares' compensation increased 11 times faster than that of employees
Marianne:Is the elimination of the CDD, advocated by certain economists, in fact by nature an attack on the CDI?
Liêm Hoang-Ngoc: The elimination of the CDD advocated by certain economists is the alibi for the relaxation of the CDI that they recommend. Some promote “flexicurity”, combining flexible permanent contracts and compensated “transition” periods, as in the Danish model. The economist, associate professor at Sciences Po, Stéphane Carcillo, was thus able to defend this model, except that he now advocates reducing the duration and amount of unemployment benefits, which is contradictory with the Danish case where compensation is “generous”: 90% of the reference salary for two years…
Is there no possible way to eliminate the CDD without attacking the rights of workers on CDI?
The CDD has particular utility in a model where the norm is full-time, indefinite employment, where companies resort to temporary work to “plug the holes” in the event of illness or seasonal peak.
This model still works very well. The data has not changed in the long term. The stock of stable permanent jobs represents nearly 85% of total employment. The average length of employment is still over 11 years. Employment has not really become more flexible. It is its total volume which is growing at a slower rate, hence the persistence of unemployment. But the stock of atypical jobs – including fixed-term contracts, temporary work and Uber-based independent work – still represents only 15% of the total stock of jobs.
READ ALSO : “Marianne’s” response manual: no, Jean-Claude, the rich are not martyred in France
So rather than abolishing it, we should strengthen the CDD?
Strengthening the CDD is not necessary since its purpose is to grant flexibility to employers to fill the shortcomings of the company, where the standard remains the CDI. The problem in France is not so much the structure of employment as its volume, which has become insufficient due to the economic and industrial choices made over the last three decades.
The permanent construction contract, which lasts the entire time of an operation or a “construction site”, was proposed by some as an alternative, is it valid?
The construction site permanent contract is a variant of what advocates of the flexibilisation of the permanent contract advocate. From the moment you want to eliminate the CDD and make the CDI more flexible, you open the door to a whole range of flexible CDIs.
Spain, in 2022, has chosen to make fixed-term employment more complicated. Fixed-term contracts are limited to 18 months in total and cannot exceed a continuous period of 6 months. As a result, the number of permanent contracts jumped, reaching nearly 800,000 new signings of permanent contracts in June 2022. Is this a relevant model?
The 2021-2022 period mainly coincides with the end of the Covid-19 crisis, during which companies anticipated a strong and lasting recovery, supported by public policies. They have therefore increased the number of permanent hires. This movement is not unique to Spain. It explains the decline in unemployment in Europe during this period, until the return of austerity… The best protection for employees is to maintain legislation protecting full-time, permanent employment, by limiting the use of fixed-term contracts for specific periods.
READ ALSO : “We call for a reform of the offense of moral harassment at work”
Basically, why is relaxing the permanent contract such a popular idea on the right?
Making the labor market more flexible is a popular idea on the right because conservative circles are allergic to social legislation. But it is not because there are no rules that the economy creates more jobs. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the labor market was extremely flexible. There was no Labor Code, no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits and yet employment remained degraded in a depressed economy until the Second World War…
