A-Infos (en) France, OCL: France, Work(le): at least it has the merit of being clear (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Pôle emploi undoubtedly gave the impression to bureaucrats who don't 
frequent it of a structure that was a little too social, an agency to 
which people went to come and receive benefits rather than to leave with 
a job... With France Travail, it's is clearly written on the tin, it's 
about getting people back to work. By force, or by force. A look back at 
the last 7 years during which unemployment insurance reforms have 
followed one another, making the situation of people in difficulty more 
and more untenable, the new developments at the start of 2024 and the 
gloomy prospects for the end of this year.

Return to the reforms of
unemployment insurance since 2017
2017: the end of the unemployment insurance model. Part of the employee 
contributions which finance unemployment insurance is replaced by CSG (a 
tax). It is a discreet measure, with serious consequences: from now on, 
through taxes, the State is the sole decision-maker on the portion of 
its budget that it decides to allocate to unemployment insurance. Enough 
to weigh more than heavily in "negotiations with social "partners".

2019 - January: law for a "professional future"... which resulted in 
more systematic radiations. No longer going to a meeting with your 
advisor? And presto, 1 month of radiation (compared to 2 weeks 
previously). A second miss? You take 2 months, and 4 months for the 
third... Another possibility of losing your allowance: refusing a 
"reasonable job offer". If we decline two more offers: it is canceled 
for 2 months, and for 4 months on the third refusal... And finally, it 
is no longer legitimate to refuse an offer on the grounds that the 
salary is lower than that offered. we touched during his last job.

2019 - November: the conditions for access to benefits are tightened. To 
qualify for rights, you must have worked 6 months out of the last 24 
(compared to 4 months out of 28 previously). The effect of this reform 
was not long in coming: as soon as it was implemented, the opening of 
rights fell drastically... We suspect that it was not because people had 
miraculously found jobs! To this aspect was added the reduction in the 
allowance for very high incomes, which we do not really want to cry 
about and which only concerns, in any case, around 90,000 people (the 
majority men, executives, having lost a gross income of EUR7,000, 
according to an Unédic survey) and a possibility of opening rights for 
those who have resigned (under conditions: you must have 5 years of 
seniority and a professional project of reconversion validated by a 
commission).

2021: the methods for calculating the daily allowance change. It was 
probably the blow that struck the hardest on the heads of the 
precarious. The calculation is now done by dividing the salaries 
received over the last 24 months by the calendar days, between the first 
day of the first contract and the last day of the last, counting all 
periods, whether worked or not. Part-time workers or those alternating 
between periods of contract and unemployment are automatically 
disadvantaged by this calculation. It sometimes fell so low that a 
threshold was introduced... we cannot collect less than 57% of the sum 
obtained with the old calculation method. Great economy for the state.

2022: introduction of the company bonus-malus... the employer 
contribution rate varies from approximately 3 to 5% depending on whether 
or not the company uses too many fixed-term contracts.

2023 - February: introduction of the concept of "countercyclicality". 
When the job market is good (< 9% unemployed in the employable 
population), the maximum duration of compensation increases from 24 to 
18 months. When things are bad (> 9%, or increase over 3 quarters): 
maintain the duration of benefits (they call it "being generous").

2023 - April: abandoning a job no longer entitles you to unemployment, 
an employee is now presumed to have resigned when they abandon their job 
instead of being dismissed by the employer for misconduct.

France Travail 2024:
forced, barely disguised work
If you've held on this far, hold on to your hair: it's not over.
The decrees at the end of 2023 now establish the pure and simple 
elimination of benefits if one refuses to continue (in the same 
position, same place of work and equivalent or higher remuneration) a 
fixed-term contract as a permanent contract, twice a year. . But how on 
earth can the administration know? Because, until now, the offers had to 
come from Pôle emploi for the institution to be aware of our refusal 
(and to set up, or not, at the discretion of each agency, and depending 
on statistical needs, the elimination of ad hoc allocations).  With 
France Travail (ta-dam!), companies have now acquired the possibility of 
denouncing their employees on fixed-term contracts who refuse to 
continue to be exploited at home (this must be what they call "company 
support"...) . A brand new, beautiful site has been created to do this 
so that it is effective and pleasant for the employer to make this 
denunciation[1]. Nice sword of Damocles for workers who would benefit 
from receiving an improved fixed-term contract each month from the 
precariousness bonus (which puts spinach in the spinach). We are always 
getting a little closer to forced work.

France Travail is also the single place for censusing all the unemployed 
(young people who until now depended on local missions, disabled people 
who depended on Cap emploi, RSA[2]recipients who depended on the 
departments) - by the way, we It is difficult to see how registering all 
these beautiful people under the same umbrella will reduce the 
unemployment figures, but that is not our problem. The unfulfilled 
objective is obviously to reduce compensation expenses by putting back 
to work all those who are judged to be able to: disabled - they can 
still be useful! -, young parents - we promise you places in crèches so 
you can get back to work quickly. All these beautiful people will be 
required to sign a unified engagement contract mentioning their "social 
and professional integration objectives" replacing the Personalized 
Access to Employment Project, the Youth Engagement Contract and the 
Reciprocal Engagement Contract currently in force. until then.

Transformation of the RSA
Under the guise of "simplification", this registration of all 
"employable" people under the same umbrella makes it possible to 
increase the pressure on those who receive the RSA. By 2025, all RSA 
beneficiaries will be registered with France Travail: the beneficiaries 
themselves, but also their beneficiary spouses.

Since 2023, an experiment has been launched in 17 departments which 
aimed to "intensify support" for people receiving RSA. This was not 
applied in the same way in all the test areas: depending on the 
department, it was on a voluntary basis or the profiles were selected 
and summoned based on their "distance from employment"... The However, 
the principle remains the same everywhere: to be able to continue to 
receive the benefit, you must demonstrate 15 to 20 hours of weekly 
activity. A whole host of activities are counted, such as volunteering 
in an association, getting your driving license and of course the job 
search process itself. This Trojan horse is now extended to 47 
departments[3], including Vienne, and it would be generalized in 2025.

So, 15 hours of activity per week, "it's not work", the ministers cry 
out, one after the other. And yet, some already have rich ideas in this 
direction: the deputy of Les Républicains de l'Aube, Valérie 
Bazin-Malgras, had already tabled a bill 2 years ago aimed at 
"conditioning the payment of the RSA to the active assistance with grape 
harvests and seasonal harvests." "We're not going to ask them, we're 
going to force them," she clarified...
Even if it is not work, the fact of imposing a duration of weekly 
activity in exchange for a social benefit amounts to constraining its 
unconditionality.

From RMI to RSA: fundamental changes
The RMI, created in 1988, aimed to grant "any person in a situation of 
exclusion from suitable means of existence" by promoting, through an 
unconditional minimum income, integration... without specifying whether 
it was social or professional.

With the RSA created 20 years later, there has been no more ambiguity 
from the start: it is part of the logic of "rights and duties", and it 
is now a question of "encouraging the exercise or return to professional 
activity. Recipients are required to "search for a job, take steps...". 
If, for a long time, they have been very controlled - including by means 
of placing their bank account under surveillance - the fact of 
introducing a minimum duration of activity as a condition for continuing 
to receive the allowance ends in bury unconditionality.

"Reinforced support"?
Yes: towards the exit
And in exchange for this "effort" on the part of those who want to 
receive their benefit, the State undertakes to strengthen the resources 
allocated to job search assistance, training... A promise which does not 
bind than those who believe in it. What we observe, on the other hand, 
is that the emphasis is placed on controls! Attal has already announced 
that checks should increase from 500,000 (in 2023) to 1.5 million per 
year from 2025. National mediators, who manage disputes between Pôle 
emploi and users, have recorded a sharp increase in the appeal rate in 
2023 for the reason of "delisting"... As for RSA recipients, control 
will be done through of the weekly meeting to present the week's 
activities... The sanctions, in the event of a breach? The suspension of 
the RSA takes the time to show its credentials again, with possible 
retrospective collection of the sums withheld, and partial or total 
cessation of the allowance in the event of refusal of checks, and also 
if the refusal is frequent. Obviously, the non-use of the RSA, already 
high (in 2018, 34% of eligible households did not use the RSA... and 20% 
3 quarters in a row, according to the DREES[4], risks exploding.

As for the unemployed, not everyone is concerned by the hunt for "a good 
job search": only those who are compensated will be subject to checks by 
France Travail, because there is money to be recovered. For those who 
register with France Travail without compensation and wishing for 
support, support is and will remain non-existent. This is indeed a tax 
reform...

You will recover well
a little reform for the road?
That's already a lot... but there's more. A new decree is announced by 
Attal "by July 1", despite the political agitation of recent weeks, for 
application next winter, and this despite the continued increase in 
unemployment since 2023 ( increased from 7.1% to 7.4%, which should have 
led, according to their own stories of countercyclicality, to leave us 
alone...): the government plans to reduce the duration of compensation 
by several months ( at 15 months maximum, instead of 18 currently); the 
tightening of access to rights by in particular the increase in the 
duration of affiliation necessary to open them (8 months worked out of 
the previous 20) and the reduction in the level of compensation.

Tighten compensation rules to encourage people to return to work? A 
large third of the people registered with the late Pôle emploi were not 
compensated: it's good that reducing benefits does not, as if by a 
miracle, put people back to work...

Apply for social assistance when needed...
at work! Otherwise nothing
In all this mess, the ideological basis is the same: people who don't 
work are assisted, and social rights are no longer unconditional, they 
must be conditional on duties.
The omnipresent discourse on welfare, the fact that "too many people 
live on national solidarity" gives a strong basis to these laws. By dint 
of repeating it, a large proportion of poor workers adhere to it: these 
reforms are therefore little contested, even by those they serve.

In terms of political choices, we moved from "welfare", i.e. social 
assistance when needed, to "workfare[5]", i.e. "work, otherwise 
nothing", a policy that we know them well across the Atlantic... and we 
hardly envy them. When they are put in place, these policies are always 
accompanied by a message making beneficiaries responsible for their 
situation and emphasizing social duties and obligations. They completely 
make invisible the work of care, education and mutual aid carried out by 
people who choose or not not to have a job. These policies contribute to 
the construction of a new category of workers, forced to accept any job, 
at any price. We conclude with Jamie Peck[6]that "workfare" does not 
"consist of creating jobs for those who don't have them, but of creating 
workers for jobs that no one wants".

Jolan

Notes
[1]it's worth a look, we'll put the link here

[2]The RSA as we know it today concerned 1.93 million beneficiaries at 
the end of 2021, or 3.87 million people including spouses and 
children... 6% of the French population

[3]For 1 year, this measure has applied in the following departments: 
Côte-d'Or, Yonne, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loiret, Vosges, Aisne, Nord, Somme, 
Yvelines, Eure, Creuse, Pyrénées-Atlantiques , Aveyron, 
Bouches-du-Rhône, Loire-Atlantique, Mayenne, the metropolis of Lyon and 
Réunion.
And, since March 1, 2024, in the following: Haute-Savoie, Rhône, Allier, 
Cantal, Territoire de Belfort, Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Finistère, 
Loir-et-Cher, Cher, Eure-et- Loir, Meuse, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin (which 
constitute the European community of Alsace), Ardennes, Marne, 
Pas-de-Calais, Oise, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Manche, 
Seine-Maritime, Charente-Maritime, Vienne, Alpes-Maritimes, Vaucluse, 
Sarthe and Guadeloupe.(3)

[4]See on the DREES website, "regularly measure the use of RSA"

[5]Term that we owe to Nixon, popularized by Reagan.

[6](Workfare States, 2001, J. Peck

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