Orange with Media Services, published on Saturday 06 June 2020 at 2:14 p.m.
For Yves Veyrier, “the State, whatever the cost, must also get involved to protect employment, but also the purchasing power of employees”.
Work more to earn less, but work anyway? While the coronavirus health crisis has turned into an economic crisis, some companies in France, like Ryanair, are offering their employees to cut their wages to avoid layoffs. Using the pretext of the health crisis to lower wages in companies in great difficulty, “this is what we fear, this is what we do not want,” hammered Saturday June 6 Yves Veyrier, the secretary general of FO . “We refuse this type of blackmail, it is unacceptable”, he insisted.
“This little music of wage moderation in the face of the situation emerging from the health crisis and gradually resuming activity would be the worst thing,” said the union leader at the microphone of Europe 1. “And I don’t want it to be orchestrated by the government, through the partial activity system”, which supports 84% of net salary in the majority of cases, he added.
Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud recently called on companies to limit “job risks”, possibly negotiating “collective performance agreements”, a possibility opened up by the 2017 labor ordinances. Through this, employers can , through an agreement with trade union organizations representing the majority of the staff, reduce working hours and remuneration in times of crisis. For Mr. Veyrier, “the state, whatever the cost, must also get involved to protect employment, but also the purchasing power of employees.”
Lowering wages would also be detrimental to consumption, and therefore to recovery, he argued. “If you take a few dozen, even a few hundred euros” from employees, whose median salary is around 1,800 euros net per month, “it should not count” that they can buy a car or go more at the restaurant, he observed.
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