The tribunals are not really a close election

Submitted December 3 elections passionate little about crowds. Yet that day, nearly 20 million employees and employers are called upon to renew 14.500 advisors who sit on the labor. And the issue of size. "It is a unique jurisdiction in Europe where parity, representatives of employees and companies consider the labour disputes, defends Bernard Van Craeynest, President of the CFE - CGC. And these conflicts will always exist.

Labor, reduced number of 210 Councils after the reform of the judicial map (against 271 previously), have indeed addressed some 200,000 cases in 2006, 50 of which involved 40 on the regulation of wages and layoffs. You might therefore think employees as the employers involved in the election. It is not the case! In the 2002 election, 67 of registered employees and 73 of patterns did not vote, roughly the same figures in 1997. On the side of employers, the explanation is simple: they are little in their hearts an institution making judgments that they often feel against them. It is true that 70 of the requests of the employees are accepted. Where a high rate of appeal but, in a large majority of cases, professional judges confirm the decisions of paid advisors.

It includes much less the disinterest of the employees. Who, moreover, rather a good image of that jurisdiction: according to a study FIFG for the Ministry of labour, 70 of the polled trust the labor. Marcel Mérat, delegate Union CGT central to the PSA group, summarized graphically this detachment: "it's a bit like mutual: as long as you are not sick, it does not take, and when we become, we regret to not have." Employees are not interested, because they feel that they will not need the labor. "This is the day where they meet a problem a wrongful dismissal, hours unpaid that they discover the institution. "Somehow, the prud'hommes are synonymous with difficulties and failure and therefore people are not so much want to think about," said Patrice Diochet, steward central CFTC in France Télécom/Orange.

2 million registered and more

Ridha Ben Hamza, Co-Director of master II, lawyer of social law at the University of Paris-I, a certain consumerist approach of labour on the part of employees also plays a role: "even if only 10 of the registered vote, labor councils would be installed and function.". It's the same thing after a strike, the obtained claims also benefit to the non-grévistes.

The difficult mobilization is also the breakdown of labour and new ways of work night work, mobility, etc. There are, this year, 2 million of additional registrants from the 2002 election. Sales resulting from the natural growth of the labour force and a better consideration of employees in the sector of services at home. Relatively isolated, expected not a large participation of their part identified also as traditionally abstentionist public: job seekers, foreign workers, young people and the Parisians. Evidenced by Marianne Durieux, unionized in the CFE - CGC, who works in a subsidiary of the society of computer services neurons in Paris: "get a Union message on elections is particularly complicated because... all of my colleagues are on mission in clients and it rarely crosses", she says.

Race to the hearing

Participation also reflects the liveliness of Trade Union and social life in the company. However, for many employees, those working in small enterprises where it elects no delegates staff or representatives to the Committee, submitted election, every five years, is the only election for the social. And they have not come to vote: "half of employees have never seen a shop steward and not hear not the labor for several years, unless its use personally, and then all of a sudden, they are asked to speak on issues to which they were not aware!", exclaimed Jean Grosset, Deputy Secretary General of the Unsa (National Union of autonomous trade unions). Not to mention that, in SMEs without unions, take an hour on his working time to exercise its right to vote is not of itself: often, namely that the employer will be informed enough to give up for fear that the gesture is misperceived.

If the weakness of the unionization rate (5 in the private sector) is one of the major brakes, this is not the only one. According to Régis Dos Santos, President of the SNB (national Union of banks) CFE - CGC, the vote is "polluted" by the race for the elections hearing that engage trade unions on this occasion: "It overshadows a key issue is the perpetuation of this exceptional jurisdiction." But its legitimacy is threatened by the high abstention rate. If this rate increases, the political powers will have beautiful game to bring back the right to work in the fold of the professional judges.

Moral harassment

Even if we vote to appoint advisers on Trade Union, few lists are employees who know the judges in question. The tribunals are not really a close election. Daniel Sanchez, Confederal Secretary of the CGT, the poll offers yet employees "the opportunity to express themselves on their social demands and expectations from the unions."

Therefore, trade unions address much more growing topics, not having much to do with the election, as the CFDT: "we defend the right to respect for employees, around three claims: wages, the securing of career paths, working conditions", says Jean-Louis Malys, national Secretary. Some campaigns are still a little bit of communication on the Court. The image of the FO slogan "Give strength to your voice", accompanied by posters with an extract of the Labour Code: "any employee must undergo repeated acts of harassment." A theme which is mounted in recent years it is mentioned in almost half of the records from before the labor.

Within the business

To roll back the failure, the Ministry of labour has taken, in turn, some measures: generalization of voting by correspondence, experimentation of the vote by Internet in Paris and possibility that the elections within the companies. This is the option chosen by PSA Peugeot Citroën: 6,000 employees of the Poissy production site will vote in the theatre of the company: "the neutrality of the vote is guaranteed, because municipal staff is responsible for the conduct of operations, says Philippe Caylou, responsible for the social relations of the site." Workers who work on production lines, we're going slower pacing to allow them to be absent, will thus not need to change to vote in the city.

However, for Bernard Vivier, Director of the higher Institute of labour (IST), these measures are not enough to counteract the alienation of workers to the industrial election, which remains a background trend: today, "employees are turning their backs to the labor as they are turning their backs on unions, numerous and divided..."