French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has announced this Friday the start of a one-month period of talks with public-sector unions, in order to agree on urgent measures such as improving the lowest salaries and rolling out transparency and equality initiatives between men and women.
After a meeting at the Government headquarters with representatives of 5.8 million public employees, Lecornu proposed a “rapid” one-month negotiation, focused on raising the lowest pay and on a far-reaching reform project for salary scales.
In addition, the Executive proposes to promote more transparency and pay equality between women and men; expand coverage for transportation expenses; strengthen the protection of injured or threatened agents, and adopt measures to safeguard the neutrality and independence of civil servants.
The Government’s intention is to keep the current schedule for union elections in France, but that “the day after” agreements on these matters can be concluded. The aim is to “seal progress by mid-December already,” as the head of the French Government has emphasized.
The spokespeople for the 5.8 million public-sector workers were received at Matignon, in a meeting that had not taken place for almost two decades and that takes place just a few days after the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, which only benefits wage earners in the private sector.
In this context, the unions maintain their demands for a general increase in public payrolls and are preparing a sector strike for next November 17, after denouncing that the French Executive does not allocate the necessary funds to respond “to the ongoing loss of purchasing power of civil servants.”