Social dialogue and the public
services in the aftermath of the
economic crisis: strengthening
partnership in an era of austerity
in France
National report
Gilles Jeannot
LATTS,
école des ponts, Paris
October 2012
European Commission project
Coordinated by Professor Stephen Bach, King’s College, London
‘Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue’
VP/2011/001
Table of Contents
Summary .................................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction: The development of social dialogue in French public service ...................... 2
2. Austerity factors and restrictive measures in the French government service ................. 5
Social dialogue in a climate of austerity ................................................................................. 9
Union reactions ....................................................................................................................... 9
3. a Local government administration: general presentation ............................................... 10
The institutions of social dialogue ........................................................................................ 12
The ambiguities of social dialogue in local government ....................................................... 12
Future austerity ..................................................................................................................... 13
3. b Case studies: social dialogue in two French towns responding to the economic crisis 14
Saint Etienne ............................................................................................................................ 14
Saint Ouen ................................................................................................................................ 17
Conclusion of the case studies .............................................................................................. 20
4. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 21
References ............................................................................................................................... 23
Appendices............................................................................................................................... 25
List of Tables
Table 1: Government expenditure and revenue
Table 2: Employment in the public services
Table 3: Local government budgets in 2011
Summary
Between 2007 and early 2012, the French government undertook substantial measures to
reduce government expenditure through a policy of wage controls and job reductions
(through a principle of natural wastage under which one in two posts was not replaced after
retirement). These measures were also accompanied by a general reorganisation of central
government services and also government services in the departments and regions. These
measures were taken slightly before the beginning of the crisis and were not presented by
the government of the time as a consequence of austerity. The arrival of a socialist
government in 2012 brought a change in style and in some priorities (increase in fiscal
pressure, new jobs in education and justice), but no rollback in the objectives for pay
moderation and public sector employment. The economic crisis was explicitly cited in
justification.
A reform in industrial relations was undertaken between 2008 and 2010. Its aim was to
introduce an element of negotiation into a system governed by statute and unilateral
decision, by changing the conditions of union representation to restore union legitimacy and
by outlining conditions for binding contract between employer and employee. The origins of
this reform predate the pressure of austerity and lie in an old critique of the formalism of
industrial relations in the public sector and in the idea of adapting equivalent reforms
applied in the private sector. The introduction of austerity has had the effect of freezing the
implementation of this reform. Indeed, the decisions to reduce the workforce and
reorganise services were taken virtually without social dialogue. However, this lack of a
social dialogue has not led to mass protest movements in the public services. The main
social unrest took place in opposition to pension reform in 2010, which affected both the
public and private sectors.
Local government services have not been affected by austerity up to 2012. In fact, staff
numbers have even grown steadily in these organisations. However, tangible signs of change
are emerging and the rise in budgets and staff numbers seems to be under threat.
There are elements of centralisation in the situation of local and in particular municipal
authorities (the status of local government workers, the inflation proofing of salaries… are
decided nationally), but also of decentralisation (economic transfers from central
government to municipalities are not conditional, local authorities are free to recruit, they
have flexibility in staff promotion and bonuses…). When local authorities were growing, the
decentralising trend was dominant, but this could change with limits on central funding. At
national level, the social dialogue on the rules governing the status of local government
workers played a subordinate role to the discussions about central government workers.
This is because central government is more concerned with managing its own staff than in
regulating the relations between local employers and their employees, and because of the
difficulty of representing a large number of employers not represented by federations. Case
studies on social dialogue in two towns show, however, that social dialogue can be very
lively in local government. Here, it largely relates to questions of work organisation and
becomes particularly significant when it relates to linking the working conditions of local
government employees with the quality of service provision. Moves to connect social
dialogue and participatory local democracy illustrate these connections.
1
1. Introduction: The development of social dialogue in French public service
The French civil service in its current form was created in 1983 by the merger of three public
services (State, regional, hospital1) under the umbrella of provisions initially set out in the
statute of 1946. As of 31 December 2009, there were 5.3 million civil servants, 2.4 million of
them employed by central government (including 875,000 teachers), 1.8 million by local
government, and 1.1 million in the public hospital service. In 2009, the civil service
accounted for 20.4% of total employment. Almost half of central government employees are
managers (category A, 49.6%), as compared with only 8.4% in local government and 15.3% in
the public hospital service. Local government services are very largely made up of
operational staff (category C, 76.1%) (DGAFP, 2011).
The large majority of central government employees are recruited by examination into corps
that determine the careers that most of them will spend in government service. The
employment conditions are more flexible at regional level, with a wider pool than the
central corps, the need to be taken on by an employer after passing an examination, a larger
role for contract staff and managers recruited on political grounds (spoil or patronage
system), and finally significant mobility with the private sector. For the hospital sector, the
overlap with the private sector (which is present within the public sector itself) is even
greater. The employment conditions of central government employees are laid down by
statute rather than contract, which places the Government in a sovereign position (Bach and
Kessler, 2007), since the possibilities of negotiation set out in the statute of 1983 are small.
Reform plans inspired by New Public Management have sought to alter this model, by
introducing more contracts, by reorganising the administrative departments, and by
changing the salary setting conditions, though without transforming the general economics
of the statute (Bezes and Jeannot, 2011) (Jeannot, 2008).
For central government, the social dialogue takes place at national and local level. At
national level, senior committees made up of employer and union representatives discuss
changes in job or career definition rules (corps, grades), e.g. staff moving from intermediate
grade (B) to executive grade (A), and general human resources policy (recently, the policy on
reducing job insecurity). The adjustment of inflation of all civil service salaries is discussed
every year. At local level, the social dialogue is about the organisation of work (technical
committees) and health and safety issues (currently health and safety committee) and, for
certain categories, about career management. In Government, the formal social dialogue is
primarily central, though in recent years the directors of Government departments have had
significant flexibility in the way they apply the reforms, and local power balances with unions
have resulted in extensive negotiations, in particular about matters such as the location of
civil service jobs or long-term restructuring (Debar, 2011).
The Government may perform several roles in the social dialogue.
In the case of civil servants, the government acts directly as the employer. The roles of
regulator and employer are combined.
1
For purposes of international comparison, the particular case of the public hospital service will not be
considered here.
2
As regards the other two public service activities, central government produces standards
that apply to other employers in their relations with their employees. Those involved in the
social dialogue in local government and public hospital services therefore assume that the
reforms are broadly conceived and implemented from the perspective of the government as
employer, and then applied in the other public services. With the crisis, however, the
Government must make decisions on the deficits of all the public services, which means that
it is in a position of macro-employer in relation to the other two public services. Recently,
this has led to calls to order on the growth of local government workforces.
Moreover, in an increasing number of cases, the themes of public sector negotiation have
their origins in innovations introduced by the Government for the private sector. This was
true for the 35 hour law (which was not designed for the public services and created
problems for hospitals in particular), for the accreditation of work experience, and for the
new negotiation rules (see below). Here, the model is more the private sector than the state
sector (Bach and Kessler, 2007).
In the state sector, the social dialogue on individual cases of promotion and mobility is
particularly lively within the framework of joint administrative committees. This dominant
focus on individual cases rather than collective discussion in the technical committees has
particularly been highlighted in the case of the Ministry of Economics and Finance (Ughetto
et al., 2005). These discussions of individual cases are far from uninformed. The picture of
seniority-based promotion amongst French civil servants, traditionally cited in international
comparisons, is only partially true. Almost one in two intermediate grade (B) civil servants
move corps to go into the executive grade (A) in the course of their careers (Bessiere and
Pouget, 2007). And for executive grades, the rate of promotion within their corps or the
levels of responsibility in their positions can vary significantly. In addition, there is the
question of geographical mobility, which is also a significant concern for civil servants, who
often wish to return to their home region after a posting in a less appealing area.
Centralised decision-making in certain ministries reinforces the impact of these trends. In
this case, an appeal to the unions is an option, even for civil servants who are not unionised.
For certain executive grades, the unions may even be play a significant role in decisions. In
so far as these joint administrative committee discussions are organised on a corps basis,
this tends to strengthen union bodies that have a corps based organisation; this was an
argument for gradually reorganising or merging these corps (Conseil d’Etat, 2004) (Jeannot,
2005).
So the influence of the unions, both overall and individually, needs to be measured more in
terms of participation in elections for joint administrative committees (70% participation for
central government joint administrative committees) than of union membership (15%,
Amossé, 2004). In 2010, the CGT, historically linked to the Communist party, but which has
recently distinguished itself by its openness to the reforms, was the leading union for the
civil service in general (23.5%), a position it owes in particular to its very strong presence in
local government operational grades. The CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du
Travail) and FO (Force Ouvrière) unions have similar levels of representation (respectively
16.8% and 17.6% for the civil service as a whole, uniformly spread across the three
components: central, local and hospital). However, these organisations have significantly
different options: the latter is organised to defend the interests of different corps, an
3
approach that the former rejects. For their part, teachers are overwhelmingly members of a
union which, because of the size of this grade, has significant influence in the public service
as a whole (FSU, 11.6%). The new radical union, SUD, is gradually gaining ground (9.6%).
There is a high level of industrial conflict (1 million strike days for government ministries in a
year with no major national movement: 2009) (DGAFP, 2011).
The formal nature of social dialogue in the civil service has been criticised for many years
(Fournier, 2002) (Denis and Jeannot, 2005). The criticism was levelled equally at the material
conditions of the debates, which required the administration to be represented by as many
people and meetings as the unions, and at the way the unions were free of responsibility
because of the non-binding nature of the agreements. As a result, meetings too often took
the form of a unilateral presentation by the employer, countered by a solemn reading of
very general declarations on the part of the unions. This led to the passing of a law on 5 July
2010 on the renewal of the social dialogue.
This reform, discussed in 2008, was not generated by austerity policies, but emerged as the
culmination of a long process of discussion and as the transposition to the public sector of
rules originating in the private sector.2 In addition, it would seem from the discussions in the
social partner meeting, that because budget restrictions meant that there was no significant
issue for the two parties to discuss, the implementation of this law was delayed. This law
transforms working relations at several levels.
First, it reinforces the legitimacy of union representation: it makes it possible for any
organisation to be represented, which was not previously the case, broadens the electoral
base to nontenured civil servants, and creates a single election timetable. This provision has
already come into force for central government services, but will only be applied at the next
elections in 2014 at local government level, which necessarily delays the application of other
aspects of the law.
Second, it aims to elicit real commitment from the parties. After a transitional phase, an
agreement will only be valid when one or more organisations that have attracted 50% of
votes in the last union election, have signed it with the administration. The purpose of this is
to ensure commitment by the unions, since they will have to sign the agreements in order to
achieve the improvements they have fought for. In addition, the law states that the signed
agreements will be binding on the government, although the actual terms of this validity
remain to be tested in practice in so far as these agreements may require confirmation by
Parliament, which was not a party to the negotiations.
2
This law is the transcription of the “Bercy agreements” of 2 June 2008 and the counterpart to the law of 28
August 2008 on the reform of social dialogue in the private sector. Its conditions of application are set out in
the 22 June 2011 circular on civil service negotiation. The Bercy agreements were signed by the CFDT, which
saw them as an acceptance of the collective approach to the organisation of labour, by the CGT, which was
strengthened in its position as the leading union by the majority agreement rule, and by the FSU and UNSA
which gained from the new rules on representation. They were not signed by Force Ouvrière, which took a
stand as the last bastion of the statute. For an explanation of the positions of the different unions, see the
round table organised by the CGT “Civil service unionism confronting its responsibilities”, Fonction Publique No.
183-184, p. 12-25.
4
Third, the lifting of the obligation on the employer to have the same number of
representatives as the unions on all social dialogue bodies, which was one of the major
sources of criticism of the previous formal arrangements.
Fourth, this law was an opportunity to modernise and harmonise the social dialogue
structures, with the creation of a combined higher council of the civil service in addition to
the higher councils of each national public service, the strengthening of the legitimacy and
role of the technical committees responsible for matters of organisation, and the extension
of the role of the health and safety committees to working conditions.3 The purpose of these
changes is to counterbalance the previously central role of the joint administrative
committees, with their focus on individual decisions about mobility and promotion, in favour
of collective discussion bodies like the technical committees. Indeed, the level of
representation of the different unions will in future be based on election to these technical
committees.
The aspiration of this reform is to alter two of the historic features of social dialogue in the
administration: the unilateral character of the decisions of government as an employer, and
the focus on the discussion of individual cases. It will therefore take a certain time to assess
whether a law is sufficient to alter these entrenched tendencies.
To sum up, using Clegg’s categories, for central and local government alike, employees are
covered by unilateral relations, and this is true both for civil servants and for public servants
under contract, who are more numerous at local government level. Until the recent reform,
any agreements formally signed between parties had no legal validity and were only
symbolically binding on employers. The changes associated with the reform are still to come.
As regards local government workers, the general rules of their status are set centrally in the
higher civil service committees. Total salary levels are decided unilaterally by the
Government (for the three public services) after consultation with the unions. In a context of
austerity and wage freezes, this consultation is purely symbolic. This centralised control is
partially offset by more open discussions (though with the final decision taken unilaterally)
on changes to salary scales on a corp by corp basis. Also decided centrally are general
questions on pensions and sickness benefits, and it is noteworthy that some of the recent
reforms (35 hours, accreditation of work experience, new negotiation rules) were first
introduced in the private sector, and then applied to the public sector. For the Government,
there is an active social dialogue in the administrative committees of the different ministries
(at national level for executive grades, regional level for operational grades) on individual
careers (geographical mobility, promotion). Local authorities have significant flexibility on
certain aspects of pay (bonuses, promotion levels) and informal negotiation procedures for
the reorganisation of departments, working conditions and hours (see below).
2. Austerity factors and restrictive measures in the French government service
Whilst there seems to be clear shift towards rigour in the management of France’s public
services, this cannot be directly attributed to a response to the financial crisis. Indeed, this
shift took place with the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 and his announcements of
Government reform. The new economic conditions after 2008 could only have consolidated
3
The CHSCT (health and safety committees) are compulsory for any authority employing more than 50 people.
5
the earlier decision. It is not easy to measure the specific impact of the crisis. In contrast, the
pursuit employment of the same policy of reducing public sector jobs (excluding education
and justice) by François Hollande’s government is officially connected with the financial
difficulties that have arisen in the meantime and with the undertaking to balance the
national budget.
The debt question goes back further, but has received relatively little emphasis from the
government. There are several reasons for this. The first is the fact that the rate of growth of
the debt (measured as a percentage of GDP) increased under governments of the right
(Jacques Chirac’s presidency) and fell under the socialist government, in favourable
conditions (Lionel Jospin, 1997-2002). And while there was once again a shift towards
moderation in 2006 and 2007, before the arrival of Nicolas Sarkozy, the deficit began to rise
again from 2008, so the latter could not attribute the problem to his socialist adversaries or
take credit for any positive results.4 Moreover, and perhaps more profoundly, the question
of the national debt has, since the Maastricht Treaty, been associated with the European
issue. Now this is an issue that divides the political class and the French (vote against the
constitutional treaty in 2005, followed by a vote in favour of an equivalent text in
Parliament, vote by the left in favour of the budget treaty in 2012, after a campaign
opposing it) and creates tensions on both right and left of the political spectrum. Under
these circumstances, politicians are careful about using the debt argument. Which is why,
when it came to pension reform, the government preferred to highlight demographic factors
about the ageing of the population.
The response to the crisis was the introduction of stimulus measures and the effect of
automatic stabilisers (increase in the number of people receiving continuous social benefits),
just as much as on expenditure. In the end, government spending followed an upward curve
from 2007 to 2011. Despite this, there were nevertheless relative controls over operational
spending and a slight reduction in personnel costs. These changes are explained by austerity
measures in government administration.
Table 1: Government expenditure and revenue
2
2007
Total spending
2
2008
3
78.9
Operations
3
97.4
1
39.7
Wages
4
1
4
1
4
14.3
1
44.7
1
17.3
2
2011
54.1
42.8
1
16.8
2
2010
05.8
41.1
1
16.1
2
2009
1
40.8
1
16.0
1
16.2
Source: Insee, in billions of euros, government expenditure and revenue S1311.
A first series of austerity measures relate to the different components of civil servants’
salaries. A French civil servant’s salary is based on three criteria. The first is his or her
position in a career scale, itself determined by two criteria: membership of a corp and
position within the corp. Civil servants therefore advance within a corp, by changing grade
(with a minimum automatic progression with the possibility of faster advancement based on
score) or by moving into a corp with a higher grade. The second criterion is the adjustment
of the salary to inflation. Each career position referred to above corresponds to a number of
4
Public deficit: 2005: -2.9%. 2006: -2.3%; 2007: -2.3%; 2008: - 3.3%; 2009: -7.5%; 2010: -7.1%. Source Insee,
national accounts.
6
“points”, and these points are multiplied by an index to calculate the salary: “the point
value”. On top of this salary are bonuses that essentially depend on the person’s corp and
level in that corp. These bonuses are primarily awarded to executive grades in certain corps
(Ministry of Finance, engineers), and their attribution is still partially opaque.
Pay discussions traditionally revolve around a single criterion: the value of the point. For the
unions, if the point value increased more than inflation, civil servants got a pay increase; if
not, their purchasing power fell. A few years ago, however, the Ministry of Finance
introduced another assessment principle, linked with trends in the total wage bill and
varying in accordance with this adjustment to the point value, but also with the progress
(automatic or not) of civil servants in their careers, and trends in the number of jobs (Bezes,
2007).
The first pay measure introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy’s government was to stop the indexing
of the point value on the retail price index. Point value grew by 2.8% over the period 20082011, at a time when inflation was 4.4%, bringing a real terms salary cut of 1.6%. This
measure was partially offset by other initiatives. The government promised that this
reduction in point value would never lead to a fall in individual purchasing power, and
introduced an adjustment for employees who did not advance in their career in the
meantime, to offset the reduction (the individual standard of living guarantee was awarded
in 2010 to 56,000 civil servants, at an average of €800 each). In addition, certain sectoral
negotiations improved career prospects within some corps, some bonuses were increased,
or opportunities provided for overtime (especially in education). Ultimately, once all income
components were included, the Civil Service Ministry made the following announcement on
wage restraint: “the average net salary is €2377 a month: it grew by 2% in constant euros in
2009 (compared with 0.9% the previous year).”5
In parallel, the method of determining civil service salaries changed in response to the (late)
spread of New Public Management principles, rather than austerity measures. This was to
do with the third aspect of pay, bonuses. These bonuses were to be grouped into a single,
so-called “position and performance bonus” (inspired by reforms in public utilities (Jeannot,
2006). The bonus amount would be based firstly on a person’s job level and secondly on
performance, as assessed by their line manager. So far, this reform, important as it is in
terms of wage theory, has only been applied to some of the corps.
A second austerity measure was to reduce the number of civil servants and conduct
corresponding reorganisations. The measure was embodied in a slogan: “the
nonreplacement of one in two retiring civil servants”. The application of this precept is
based on a process of administrative reorganisation called a “general public policy review”.
The title of this reform plan was inspired by general public spending overhaul programmes in
Canada, but the plan was very quickly restricted to re-engineering the civil service (Lafarge,
2010). As a result, in the unemployment service, for example, the job placement support
services and payment services were merged, the regional administration services were also
merged (former transport and housing service with the departmental farming services), and
5
Christine Gonzalez-Demichel, Laurence Rocher, Les rémunérations dans les trois versants de la fonction
publique en 2009 » report p. 193.
7
joint support functions were created (e.g. for paying civil service wages). These measures are
one of the most significant changes in Government services for decades.
In this sense, cutting Government service jobs was effective: 75,000 jobs cut in 2008, 45,000
in 2009, which represents 5% of Government jobs over those two years. This led to a fall in
staff costs in the national budget (from 43% in 2008 to 36.5% in 2010).
Table 2: Employment in the public services
Central
Government
(000s)
2413
1
Local
Government
1222
Hospital
Public
services
885
Total
Public
Service
4521
Total*
Jobs
France
23055
Public
Service
Jobs %
19.6
2452
1
1266
904
4622
23780
19.4
2484
2
1328
931
4744
25006
19.0
2557
2
1417
973
4947
25439
19.4
2567
2
1525
1038
5130
25516
20.1
2568
2
1564
1052
5185
25705
20.2
2560
2
1612
1056
5228
26012
20.1
2498
2
1704
1073
5276
26364
20.0
2422
2
1771
1085
5278
26238
20.1
2392
2
1806
1100
5298
26007
2009
Source: rapport annuel de la fonction publique 2010-2011 , p. 302.
20.4
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
In addition to these two measures, there were other initiatives to restrict what Nicolas
Sarkozy’s government described as public service “privileges”. The most important was
pension policy, which partially brought civil servants into line with the less favourable
conditions in the private sector. More recently, the terms for sickness pay were brought
more into line with those practised in the private sector.
The reforms begun by Nicolas Sarkozy’s government thus combined quantitative measures
(significant public service job cuts, wage restraint, reductions in pension rights) and more
qualitative measures, arising from a significant reorganisation of all government
departments and associated agencies. However, few connections were made between
these reforms and the question of austerity, and whilst they did lead to spending cuts, it was
not enough to contain the rise in public expenditure.
The effects of the arrival of a new socialist government in 2012 are still difficult to assess.
However, it would seem that we can expect a change of style more than of overall direction.
The term “general public policy review” has been dropped, and the target of reducing the
number of civil servants has been replaced by that of not increasing their number. However,
given that increases are already planned in the education service (43,500 new jobs
8
announced in 2013) and in justice, the downward pressure on jobs in the other ministries is
as strong as under the previous government. As for salary levels, although some had
expected a booster effect on low wages, generated by the promise of an increase in the
minimum wage in the private sector, the very small increase in the minimum wage has
rather dashed their hopes, and does not suggest a very generous policy on changes in the
“point value”.
Social dialogue in a climate of austerity
Whilst the Sarkozy government will be remembered for its contribution to the general
development of social dialogue frameworks, with the Bercy agreements and the law of 5 July
2010 (see above), the record of social dialogue on the austerity measures just described is
fairly thin.
As regards salary issues and the value of the civil service point, there is no consensus. In
recent years, the annual meeting when the union representatives come to discuss the value
of the civil service point, which always attracts news coverage, has ended in nothing but
discord.
There was virtually no social dialogue on the general public policy review. All the national
union representatives we interviewed emphasised the total absence of discussion on the
principles of this reorganisation. In the preliminary phase, the main orientations of these
reforms were decided in private by a small group of senior civil servants, assisted by private
consultancies. Afterwards, the discussion of implementation seems to have been limited to
ancillary questions, such as standardising the additional advantages of staff in different
ministries (details of working hours, social benefits, canteen,…).
This lack of social dialogue reflects the position of the Sarkozy government which, after a
short period of openness to the unions, went on to hold them responsible for lack of
progress in society (this was one of the major themes of his presidential campaign in 2012).
It also perhaps reflects more profound aspects of the social dialogue in central government
services. As has been said, the primary discussion body was the joint administrative
committee, responsible for career management (promotion, mobility), to the detriment of
the technical committee where organisational matters are discussed. This may also reflect a
union tendency to leave the responsibility for organisational choices to the government, and
to focus on questions of wage levels and social backing for these changes.
Union reactions
France experienced a massive wave of protest against pension reform, which can be seen as
one facet of austerity policies. This took the form of repeated demonstrations, attended by
several hundreds of thousands of people, and a significant number of days lost to strikes in
the public services. This massive opposition did not result in significant amendments to the
initial proposal.
In contrast, and perhaps also in consequence (fatigue), the quantitative and qualitative
measures described were not met with national protests of comparable scope. To a large
extent, the merger of two large Ministry of Finance departments, which had led to an
9
impasse when previously attempted, went through without major opposition. However,
with regard to the reorganisations, local opposition occurred in particular when these
involved geographical relocation, or when they generated significant disruptions in service
provision (e.g. in the unemployment services, the merger between the job assignment body
(ANPE) and the benefit payment body (ASSEDIC)). There was also opposition, as often, in the
national education service, with objections focusing in particular on the abolition of the oneyear training programme for new teachers and the sharp reduction in assistant teacher
teams in primary schools. Here, the debate was more about deterioration in the service than
job losses.
3. a Local government administration: general presentation
The responsibilities of local government are divided into geographical levels. The 22 Regions
are responsible for general questions of economic development, transport (regional trains),
vocational training and the maintenance of lycée buildings. The 100 Départments are
responsible for the majority of roads, secondary school maintenance and social assistance
(social workers, minimum income distribution). This social assistance role represents a
growing proportion of spending by the Départments, although the criteria for allocating
assistance depend on national rules. The 36,000 municipalities (now mostly members of one
of the 2600 municipal district groupings) are responsible for urban planning, the
environment and maintenance of public spaces, and the maintenance of primary schools
(including subsidies for childcare facilities) and can also choose to provide numerous local
services (crèches, libraries, sports facilities,…).
The decentralisation of 1983 represented a sharp break with France’s centralising tradition.
Local government is partly reliant on central government for setting their obligations
(number of school buildings to maintain, level of social service provision) and for the
conditions of execution (status of staff employed). However, the global financial transfers
from central government and their own tax-raising powers gave local government extensive
freedoms, which were used to expand services in general, as evidenced in the increase in
local government payrolls in recent years. However, recent restriction on their powers to tax
businesses and the downward trend in globalised transfers, are gradually reducing this
freedom.
Table 3: Local government budgets in 2011
in € billions
Total spending
Municipalities
Départements
Regions
Total local government
Municipal groupings with tax-raising
powers
Combined local government + taxraising municipal groupings
Amounts
Change 2011/10 (in %)
93.3
69.2
26.7
189.2
3.0
1.3
1.0
2.1
37.3
4.6
219.5
2.7
Scope: France; amounts excluding active debt management, excluding tax redistribution.
Source: DGCL, basic budgets 2010 and 2011.
10
In terms of political control, there was a large socialist surge in the last elections in reaction
to national policies (21 Regions out of 22, a large number of Départements despite a voting
system that favours the rightward leaning countryside, and a large number of big cities,…).
The public service workforce in local government consists of the regional civil service, which
was set up in 1983 as part of the process of restructuring the status of a variety of
employment levels within a single civil service. Its creation was a product of compromise
(Biland, 2012). On one side, the plan for a single integrated civil service, supported by the
communist Public Service Minister, Anicet Le Pors, which led to the creation of corps and
strict obligations to recruit through competitive examination. On the other side, the plan to
increase the autonomy of local government decision-making, supported by the Interior
Minister Defferre and representing the aspirations of the big cities, a plan that aimed to use
civil servant status as a means of changing employment conditions. Subsequently, there
would be a variety of measures that would have the effect of increasing the independence
of the local employer.6
Although the laws on civil servants apply to local government as well as central government
employees, local employers still have significant room to manoeuvre. This includes the
substantial proportion of contract staff without public service status, specific employment
status for executive level staff chosen on political criteria (functional positions), or significant
flexibility in allocating bonuses or applying promotion criteria. All this means that municipal
government heads have considerable autonomy as employers. This flexibility and autonomy,
which were long criticised as encouraging unprofessional practices or cronyism, can now be
reinterpreted as a sign of managerial modernity, in contrast with the rigidity of personnel
management in central government service, and certain local government practices (such as
the cadres d’emploi broader than the civil service corps), have been held up as a model for
policies to merge civil service corps.
The question of social dialogue in local government has been largely neglected in French
research (Garabige, 2008). The few studies of unionism and industrial relations in the public
sector have focused on the central civil service and public companies, with a particular
emphasis on collective action driven by high-profile groups such as railway workers, nurses
or teachers. As regards municipal government, we can cite old research by Stéphane Dion
(1986), who emphasised the fact that it was in the interest of mayors to be flexible with
employees who formed part of their electoral base. In a similar vein, Gérard Adam (2000) p.
120 highlights local capacities for adjustment: “We are in the world of the “deal” where
union members close to the base achieve miracles over the years in grabbing substantial
advantages that are never touted at the forefront of the “big” industrial relations triumphs.”
For his part, Dominique Lorrain (1990) describes a pragmatic and peaceful modernisation.
However, this description may no longer hold true at a time of rising tensions in municipal
management and the emergence of embryonic conflicts (Garabige, 2010).
6
The Galland Law of 13 July 1987, which replaced the branch system by the more flexible system of job cadres,
and facilitated the recruitment of contract workers, or more recently the law of 19 February 2007, which got
rid of promotion quotas and allows politicians to promote people once they have met the minimum seniority
conditions.
11
The professional bodies themselves have little more to say. These questions are not tackled
at specialist conferences, and the primary professional journal, the Gazette des communes,
confines itself to reporting the occasional conflict. The section in social audits covering social
dialogue is often summarily filled, or left empty, as if all these were matters best dealt with
in private. The prefects, who are judged on their capacity to maintain social harmony and
good relations with local government, are in no more hurry to send feedback to the Interior
Ministry on industrial conflicts in those authorities.
The institutions of social dialogue
The social dialogue takes place at both national and local levels. At national level, since the
recent social dialogue reform, the negotiating body has been the joint higher council for
local government service. These bodies are made up of representatives from the unions and
from local employers (elected from electoral lists by three “colleges”, which correspond to
the municipalities and municipal districts, the départements and the regions). However,
because the provisions applicable to local government are often transcriptions of rules that
were first designed for central government, a significant proportion of the preliminary
discussions takes place without representatives of local employers and employees.
For each entity, local social dialogue is established in the official bodies: technical
committees (which discuss questions of organisation), joint administrative committees
which focus on individual cases and particularly promotions, and health and safety
committees for directly health-related matters. The union representatives are elected at
regional, departmental and municipal level. For municipalities with less than 50 public
employees and for larger municipalities that so choose (this is the case of Saint Ouen in the
case study below), the organisation of joint administrative committees is delegated to
management centres (to prevent conflicts of interest, to guarantee the legal validity of
actions relating to individuals, and to provide flexibility in the case of rules that involve
promotion quotas relative to the number of people promoted).
This division of roles in the social dialogue offers no forum for social dialogue in the event of
the creation of new district services and the transfer of employees from individual
municipalities to these new grouped entities. A report on this subject notes that these major
reorganisations in local services have taken place without the creation of any more genuine
forums for discussion in the new entities than there had been in the old (INET, 2011). At
municipal level, the only subject of social dialogue was the preservation of each individual’s
acquired advantages following transfer to the new district entity.
The ambiguities of social dialogue in local government
At national level, the social dialogue concerning local government is held in little regard
either by government or unions. In the negotiations on civil service status, the Government,
it is said, is primarily concerned with its function as a civil service employer and the rules are
firstly designed from this perspective, and then simply applied to local government
employees. Moreover, the level of unionisation would seem to be lower in local government
(10% according to Garabige 2008). However, the subordinate nature of the social dialogue is
also caused by the unions, at two levels. Firstly, for a long time certain unions, although
12
more present in the public than in the private sector, placed greater value on the latter. 7
Secondly, in a sort of mirror process, local public service workers are sometimes represented
by union members who are central government civil servants.
This lack of status is also partly linked with the difficulty of finding a legitimate
representative for local government employers at national level. There are powerful
nonpartisan associations representing elected officials (association of mayors of France,
association of municipal council chairs…). There are also representatives of different political
bodies within the higher council of the civil service. Although these two entities are legally
separate, in reality they overlap. Indeed, the only electoral lists presented for the higher
council are those presented by these big associations (certain elected members of the
supreme council are also non-executive directors of these associations). The pre-reform
discussions between the administration and the politicians’ representatives fluctuate
between a formal relationship with the elected members of the higher council and direct
contact with the associations and their technical staff for the preparation of projects.
Interlocutors at local level (for example a mayor) are more clearly identified. However, the
roles of other local politicians (who may be responsible for overseeing a particular
department) and those of the municipal department heads (in particular the human
resources directors who manage day-to-day relations with staff (INET, 2007)) are less clearly
identified. The case studies below highlight the great vitality of this social dialogue.
Future austerity
The situation of local government in France would seem to offer a counter-example to the
rise of austerity in European public organisations; however, this could quickly change. Public
employment has increased in local government both over the long term and in recent years
(see table above). This increase corresponds in particular to the emergence of new district
entities. The development of these larger groupings has resulted in a greater range of
services (buses, sports facilities,…) beyond town centres and therefore an increase in
personnel requirements. They are also supposed to generate economies of scale, which
have not yet materialised. Moreover, the question of debt takes different forms between
central government and local government, since the latter can only contract debts for
investment and not to offset a deficit in operating costs. For these different reasons, the
question of austerity has not been discussed in recent years at local government level.
However, it would seem that a change is currently underway in this growth trend. Central
Government has removed the advantage of a business tax which gave flexibility to those
local authorities that were most active in attracting companies to their areas. It has frozen
the lump-sum transfers arising out of the decentralisation process. Moreover, the general
measures for freezing salaries or restricting sickness benefits apply to local government staff.
Observers therefore believe that budgets have remained static since 2010.8 At the time of
the presidential elections, the outgoing president announced that local government would
7
However, this tendency has recently been corrected within the CGT and the CFDT, with the latter organising
“1 2 3 public” meetings to raise the profile of conflicts in the public sector.
13
be directly targeted in measures to reduce public spending.9 The new president has some
room for manoeuvre, in that he is supported by a Senate with a left-wing majority as a result
of the serious dissatisfaction of local politicians with local government reform. Nonetheless,
in his comments on the budget he conveyed the same message in different terms about the
need to control local budgets.
3. b Case studies: social dialogue in two French towns responding to the economic crisis
The towns used in the case studies were chosen at a time when austerity had not yet
become widespread. Saint Etienne was chosen because it was considered to be one of the
towns in France worst affected by economic events. Saint Ouen provides a counterpoint of a
town with less serious financial problems, but which nevertheless recently received a rap on
the knuckles from the regional court of accounts on this issue. The two towns have relatively
developed and formal, and probably above average, systems of social dialogue. Because
monographs on social dialogue in local government are scarce in France, the case studies
will provide detailed accounts of this relatively unfamiliar reality.
Saint Etienne
Saint Etienne would seem to be one of the towns in France that has experienced the
greatest economic problems, for reasons that are both historical and circumstantial. A
former industrial and mining town (known for arms and bicycle manufacturing and for its
soccer team), it has undergone a long process of de-industrialisation which persists to this
day. Moreover, its population is one of the poorest in terms of income.10 A second feature is
its falling population size, linked firstly with the same process of deindustrialisation and then
with the fact that the wealthiest inhabitants choose to settle in the surrounding countryside.
The population has therefore decreased from 240,000 to 175,000 (between 1990 and 2010).
A falling population is a difficult situation for a municipality to manage, since resources
diminish, whereas the costs associated with previous amenities are hard to adjust. Over
time, this has resulted in Saint Etienne becoming one of the country’s most indebted
towns.11 This is exacerbated by the fact that the previous municipal government opted to
take out investment loans that reduced interest rates by half over three or four years, in
exchange for taking a risk on financial markets and factors over which the town had no
control (e.g. dollar-yen parity). The risk became a loss with the 2008 crisis. The town had
contracted 70% of its debt in the form of such financial products, i.e. €260 million and a
potential loss of €150 million out of a total annual budget of €350 million.
8
A Randstat survey in May-June 2010 notes that 58% of local managers questioned expect local government
employment to remain stable in 2011, a quarter expect an increase and 15% a reduction. Cited in (Guillot,
Michel, 2011, p. 44). Another sign, the national local personnel centre, whose budget is proportional to the
local government wage bill, after many years of rising budgets, expected resources to remain flat in future
years.
9
"40% increase in local government employees over 10 years is a trend that needs to be stopped": Nicolas
Sarkozy vow to civil servants in Lille on 12 January 2012.
10
In 2004, average annual income per tax household was €14,082, as compared with €17,314 in the Rhône
Alpes Region.
11
In 2011 the journal du dimanche (8 October) gave a ranking of France’s most indebted cities. Saint Etienne
was top of the list ahead of Marseille and Lille.
14
When a new socialist municipal team replaced the previous administration in 2008, it made
restoring the finances the first goal of its term of office. This approach was facilitated by the
change of regime, which allowed it to distance itself from its predecessors, and an
independent audit report which showed that the town had no cash flow. The policy choice it
made was to increase taxes (by 9.5% in the first year), to rationalise public amenities and
municipal buildings (closing sports facilities and primary schools, selling buildings, but
increasing the maintenance budget for existing buildings), and finally to control the size of its
payroll. The municipality undertook to limit the increase in its wage bill to 1% per year with a
1,5 to 2 % age and job-skill coefficient (wage bill of around €130 million). The wage bill
initiatives primarily meant reorganising individual salary or promotion measures, along
similar lines to the previous administration. The result was a workforce reduction limited to
around 100 people on a like-for-like basis. As regards the other aspects of personnel
management (share of promotions), the municipality largely pursued the policies of its
predecessor.
The reorganisation may be understood first as the application of certain management
principles and the rationalisation of the production of municipal services. Municipal services
undergo changes similar to those encountered in other components of the public service,
which are discussed and disseminated in particular at the school of public administration
and at the annual local government meetings (Strasbourg meetings). The efforts to limit the
number of layers of management can be seen, for example, in the administration of the
swimming centres, where the position of director was adjusted, or in retirement homes. The
reorganisation of the technical services around local hubs working directly with the
neighbourhood committees, is also one of the management changes implemented by many
towns.
However, certain reforms would seem to form part of a longer history of professionalisation
in municipal management. The efforts to fully apply the 35 hour week in the municipal
police, or to increase control over the largely autonomous weekend cleaning teams, for
example, seem to have less to do with new public management principles than with ordinary
management.
For the municipality, these reforms are part of a process of developing and formalising the
social dialogue. This aspect is the particular responsibility of the deputy mayor in charge of
human resources, a former union activist. She began by establishing a formal system for
planning the social dialogue, the “mille bornes”. Under this procedure, any reorganisation
plan is accompanied by a succession of preliminary, intermediate and follow-up meetings
with the unions, and by linked meetings with the staff concerned (attended by the unions)
and with the union organisations alone. Subsequently, other initiatives were introduced to
foster this dialogue, such as the recruitment of a person specifically to facilitate relations
with the unions.
Another important factor is the growing role of occupational health and safety issues. A
specific health and safety system has been established. This would also seem to be a way of
using health issues to tackle organisational questions. For example, in 2011 the GPS (gérer,
prévoir, servir – manage, prevent, serve) group sought to clarify the role of supervisors in
15
safety management, contributed to an inter-secretariat discussion network and mobilised
reception staff to organise reception areas and establish joint training programmes.
The priorities and procedures for discussion and debate on reorganisation vary from one
sector to another, but in most cases result in amendments to the initial plans, as evidenced
by one of the biggest projects, the reorganisation of parks, gardens and cleaning services.
One of the first aims was to create district-based teams, with the aim of achieving efficiency
gains by removing the need for staff to travel before starting work (though restricted by the
fact that some of the equipment is shared by several districts), enhancing proximity to local
people, who would see the same staff day after day, and improving local democracy,
through close links between the maintenance teams and the neighbourhood committees.
This latter aspect is part of a wider move to reorganise municipal services on a
neighbourhood basis, begun in 2000.12 This objective was in line with a CGT aspiration, but
encountered opposition from the CFDT. A second, linked priority, was to improve the
versatility of the maintenance teams. The aim of the initial project was to integrate the work
of the gardeners and maintenance staff, and in addition to give them the job of issuing
warnings for vandalism. This last proposal met with a heated reaction from staff, and was
completely abandoned. The concept of versatility was seen, particularly by the gardeners, as
disrupting professional identities, and in the end the organisation was limited to one
spectrum of this population. The third issue was weekend working, since a previous team
that only worked at weekends had proved difficult to manage. The initial principle of
requiring all staff to work on certain weekends was also watered down to a voluntary
scheme. All these changes were accompanied by additional recruitments and the previously
outsourced tramline maintenance services were brought back under municipal control.
The highly formal nature of the dialogue and these kind of significant adjustments to the
initial plans, do not suggest that there was a unanimous recognition of the quality of the
social dialogue. The two unions we spoke to clearly expressed their dissatisfaction on this
point, and the municipal officials their disappointment that the adjustments to the initial
projects were not acknowledged. This negative view of the social dialogue led to a six-month
boycott of the official structures and a well-attended demonstration that resulted in the
symbolic burial of the dialogue process. This malaise partly reflects the fact that the
adjustments to the plans often entailed a period of conflict. In 2011, 8 local warnings were
issued to 1978 strikers regarding local action. Most of these actions were short lived.
Warnings are also sometimes a way of avoiding conflict.
It would seem that this disappointment also reflects difficulties arising less from the choice
to reorganise services and the front office, then from tensions within management. In
particular, the decision to concentrate power around central management and to replace
certain senior executives, placed pressure on middle managers, who were required to
implement the new structures and achieve new targets. This created bad feeling amongst
these managers. In a 2011 survey of 254 managers, 18% judged the industrial relations
climate as bad, and 60% as very bad, and 60% felt that the rules were applied inequitably
within the municipality. This bad feeling also crystallised into a social movement around the
plan to reduce certain benefits relating to the organisation of working time.
12
Moderniser le service public des villes, territoire et modernité, Rencontre des acteurs de la ville, Montreuil
24-25 February 2000.
16
To conclude, if we go back to the three aspects of the reorganisation, the record on social
dialogue is uneven. On the central plank – the reorganisation of the services provided to
users – the components of the debate seem clear, the organisational choices relatively clear,
and shared in certain cases by the unions and in other cases not. In addition, the plans seem
in no way to have run into the sand, even though the basic amendments and compromises
seem to entail periods of conflict. On the second plank – bringing the administration under
control – there is relative agreement over the broad record, but things are trickier in detail,
since more personal factors come into play. The unions cannot object to the general
principles of regulatory equality and transparency, but they find themselves in a tricky
position if they want to avoid appearing to be simply accepting the management line.
However, it is the final plank – reform of governance – where the biggest problems arise.
The new principles of concentrating decision-making around the municipal services and
resources departments cannot be justified on the general grounds of transparency, or by
visible improvements for users. This makes them both more questionable and more
questioned.
Saint Ouen
The town of Saint Ouen provides something of a contrast in economic terms. Adjoining Paris
in the Seine Saint Denis Department, which contains the largest concentration of poverty in
the Paris region, Saint Ouen is a working-class town13 of medium size (population 50,000),
headed by a left-wing municipal council and characterised by typically suburban social
problems. In particular, it was the centre of attention when the Minister of the Interior
made it a showcase for his anti-drug trafficking measures. However, it is not a town without
resources. A former industrial area, its proximity to Paris smoothed the way for its switch to
the service sector. The town is creating jobs against in conditions of national economic crisis,
and its population is growing. A development project, consisting of a 100 ha econeighbourhood by the River Seine, a combination of offices and housing expected to attract
a further 10,000 inhabitants in the near future, illustrates these trends. So its budget is still
growing. The mismatch between these relatively substantial resources and a working-class
population is at the heart of the difference in views between the municipality and the court
of accounts. In particular, the latter points to an above average number of staff per
inhabitant, whereas the municipal services emphasise their desire to provide good services
for a population that would not be able to afford the same level via the private sector. So
what we see here is the situation of a town that can still envisage improvements in services,
although the issue of budget constraints is beginning to emerge.
One original approach in Saint Ouen was to involve the town’s population as well as its
personnel in decision-making. Conferences were run in 2008 to garner the townspeople’s
views on the management of the town. Open public meetings or panel discussions were held
in different districts or on specific topics. These topics included youth affairs, housing, roads,
employment, as well as the Grand Paris project, since the inhabitants are afraid that they
will become part of Paris. The discussions, which sometimes went beyond the sphere of
13
Income per tax household, 17,500 euros.
17
municipal action, culminated in a list of undertakings by the municipality (100 Undertakings).
As a result, a process of indirect participation based on this list of undertakings began with
municipal staff. In 2009, the municipality ran plenary meetings followed by working groups
with its staff. These meetings were open to union representatives, but were aimed directly
at staff. They culminated in 21 Decisions, whose implementation is monitored by an
observer group made up of personnel from the services affected by the targets. This
resulted, in particular, in a formal decision to bring all municipal services together on a single
site or to set new conditions for the running of public outreach services. On this last issue, a
group of 80 staff formed working groups which are still underway in 2012. This original
combination of participatory democracy and indirect participation by municipal workers has
been particularly well received by Saint Ouen’s municipal representatives, and is also
perceived as a significant enhancement to social dialogue by the CFDT.
The traditional social dialogue bodies are also very much alive. The joint technical
committees meet regularly (almost every month, though they are only legally required to
meet twice a year), the subjects of the meetings are announced at least two weeks ahead,
which gives the unions time to organise meetings to garner the views of people working in
the services affected by the decisions. The CGT section in particular actively takes advantage
of this arrangement to organise its input. Although the municipality does not necessarily
seek agreement from all the unions, it can re-present a project to a subsequent joint
technical committee if reactions have been excessively heated. The committee responsible
for health and safety issues, CHSCT, is very active. It is advised by a group of professionals
who provide input on health and safety in the workplace (occupational health, workplace
counselling, health and safety officers…). These activities are linked to a health and safety
risk analysis unit largely drawn from people provided by the CGT and a unit that provides
support for job reassignment for people who have lost motivation in their work. For the CAP
(joint administrative committees) and individual career management, the municipality has
outsourced this role to the management centre (which it is not legally required to do),
although this does not exclude local debate on these individual career issues. So, for
example, the administration and the unions have agreed on the rules governing promotion
and that the list of people put forward for promotion (which will generally be approved by
the management centre’s CAP) should be discussed at an informal meeting with elected
officials at the joint technical committee.
Following a conflict amongst school staff (maintenance, catering) which had led to a
breakdown in understanding and strong action to prevent physical access to the premises,
the municipality introduced an alert system in addition to the standard discussion
procedures prior to a strike warning. The unions, usually on an individual basis, can thus
summon the head of personnel to meet them within one or two days. This means that staff
dissatisfaction – whether about general organisational issues or also often on more
individual matters – can be dealt with quickly.
As in Saint-Etienne, the reorganisation of the cleaning services was a significant project for
the municipality. The aim was to improve quality of service for users, by extending cleaning
hours in the afternoon. An initial project was presented. One of its main proposals was a
very early morning start, which was partly approved by staff who liked the idea of working
without pressure from users, but rejected by the CGT on the grounds of potential health
18
damage caused by these working patterns. The project also included timetable variations to
reflect the town’s different activities, such as festivals and markets (the town is notably the
venue for the Paris region’s biggest flea market). This proposal only gave the new working
timetables, without specifying the organisational arrangements or the street by street
implementation plan. This first proposal was forcefully rejected by the CGT, which organised
a demonstration in front of the Town Hall. Following this, four new versions were drawn up,
giving detailed definitions of the work and fixed timetables for the different teams. This
process was undertaken with constant feedback between the administration, the unions and
the teams concerned. The issue of afternoon work was tackled by recruiting a new team (10
members), and the change in working hours was accompanied by a bonus (between 90 and
175 euros a month, depending on the team). The question of the road network will be
tackled when Saint Ouen becomes part of an urban district in January 2013. The services will
then be transferred to the district administration. The transfer will take place with no
reorganisation, and individuals will retain their existing benefits. It seems likely that these
favourable conditions will, as in many towns, allow for the transfer of services to take place
without conflict with staff.
Efforts to reconcile improvements in services with the maintenance of municipal workers’
working conditions are apparent in many sectors of municipal action, such as the sports
service or the out-of-school hours childcare service. The swimming centres have been
reorganised to offer better opening hours and new services (fitness room), but the
organisation has also been rationalised with a single management for all the swimming
centres, instead of one director per centre. Out-of-school hours childcare raises questions of
working conditions more directly. The staff concerned are required in the morning for
preschool care, in the evening for after-school care, and at midday as canteen monitors.
These multiple duties create jobs that are full-time, but stretch over extended hours with
periods of inactivity, which are particularly problematic for staff who do not live in the town
and cannot go home in between shifts. So the aim is to combine these jobs with activities in
the elderly care sector, in order to fill these intermediate periods.
Saint Ouen does not seem to exhibit the tensions regarding the middle and upper
management levels that are found in Saint Etienne. This is because the organisation is under
less economic pressure, because the town is smaller, allowing regular meetings of all
management, and because of efforts to clarify roles (organisational chart allocating
objectives to each position). However, there are significant problems regarding the situation
of the first level of management (supervisors). Most staff at this level are ordinary operatives
who have moved up to become supervisors. They have a way of managing that can be
perceived as paternalistic, or sometimes a little rough and tactless (public criticism of staff
under their authority), they can be out of touch with new technology and find it hard to
manage rapid change (e.g. reorganise team operations to cope with special events). These
staff do not really have any representation. Personally criticised by the unions representing
operational staff because of their management style, they are not really represented by the
management unions, who are more interested in representing senior managers (category A).
The question of budget restrictions was explicitly raised in the court of accounts report. The
court highlights the increase in the wage bill and draws attention to the inadequate
resources directed to combating absenteeism. The wage bill is €67 million out of a total
19
budget, excluding investment, of €115 million (i.e. one public service worker per 28
inhabitants, as compared with 36 or 43 for comparable suburban towns around Paris). These
arguments are opposed by the municipality. It responds that this reflects a political desire to
offer an above-average level of service (media library, crèches,…). On the subject of
absenteeism, it maintains that this partly reflects the testing nature of certain operational
jobs. Nevertheless, the municipality acknowledges that the period of unrestricted growth is
over. The reduction in central government grants, the removal of business tax and the
transfer of certain resources to the district authority, will soon put the kinds of pressure on
its budget that other municipalities are beginning to experience.
So it is looking to save money, with a focus on savings at the margins. This could mean not
improving the compensation system, thinking twice before replacing someone on maternity
leave, replacing a full-time staff member with one on 80% with the same job description,
trying to reallocate staff where in previous years they would have simply recruited someone
new, no longer automatically giving promotion when staff reach promotion age, being more
strict on absenteeism and on putting demotivated staff back to work. These measures,
which might appear relatively sparse, actually brought growth in the wage bill under control.
The increase, which stood at 4% to 5% in the years 2005-2009, fell to 2% in the subsequent
years.
Conclusion of the case studies
The two cases presented here are not intended to be representative of the practice of social
dialogue in municipalities. They were chosen in particular because in both cases, social
dialogue takes a particularly developed form. Nonetheless, given how little we know about
municipal practices, they do enable us to identify a number of noteworthy trends.
In both cases, we see that the process of modernisation in municipal management,
described over many years (Lorrain, Barthelemy), is still underway. This covers the creation
of a genuine unified command centre around the mayor, the personnel director and the
central services director, action to reform restrictive sectoral practices that have become
entrenched over time, and the professionalisation of certain functions. In both towns, the
administration’s interlocutors contrast their attitude with the situation that existed in the
past or in other municipalities: a negotiation space fragmented across different services, in
which the unions and the responsible officials reach agreements that lead to an
entrenchment of local, custom-based rules. It was this rejection of entrenched practices that
was at the centre of the re-establishment of control over the municipal police in Saint
Etienne. The court of accounts criticised a week of holiday granted by the municipality of
Saint Ouen in 1968. In both towns, we see an effort to generalise the recruitment of staff
through professional examinations, and to professionalise the first line management, often
drawn from internal promotion.
The formal process of social dialogue based on joint bodies such as the CTP, CAP, CHSCT, is
part of a wider fabric of consultation and less formal dialogue with the unions, staff working
groups and activities associated with health and safety prevention and management
practices.
20
Even in towns where the forms of social dialogue are carefully maintained, power relations
remain very present, in particular around service provision. Alexandra Garabige (2010)
speaks of “bellicose compromises” in describing a negotiation on working time that she
observed in one municipality. This same tone would seem to be present in the case of Saint
Etienne and to a lesser degree in Saint Ouen. Power struggles are still a reality. Although the
Bercy agreements have not yet been applied, there are factors relating to negotiation which
are not about the signature of an agreement within a joint technical committee, but about
the management of these social movements. In certain areas, management avoids
intervening, because there is too great a risk of social upheaval. In certain cases, the
administration provides openings for dialogue and status for the union organisations, to
prevent them being overwhelmed by staff. In other cases, the administration collects its own
information to identify the causes of conflict. Finally, in this way marked area of power
relations, and in the formal frameworks of joint technical committees or official social
monitoring schemes, there is an often implicit understanding of what will or will not give rise
to conflict. In these circumstances of potential tension, amendments to projects are not
insignificant, even though this does not necessarily produce satisfaction.
The economic pressure on French towns has remained limited, if we look at trends in local
public employment. Although in the case of Saint Ouen, the first signs of financial pressure
seemed to have led to little more than marginal adjustments to the conditions of
management and social dialogue, in Saint Etienne, it would appear that the pressure has led
to tensions when the issues are properly discussed.
The question of pressure on services seems to take different forms when it comes to the
provision of public services as compared with support or management functions. In the first
case, beginning with the needs of users provides a starting point for social dialogue.
Combining participatory democracy and social dialogue provides a useful way of framing this
kind of shared quality-of-service objective. Reducing outsourcing practices or bringing
services back under municipal control can also provide a basis for agreements. The unions or
staff working groups can not only specify what they see as unacceptable in terms of working
conditions or wages, but also highlight failings in the restructuring proposals or mock certain
assumptions in them, by pointing at the history of organisations, which is often one of
fluctuations between different (and always imperfect) priorities. The example of the
management malaise in Saint Etienne suggests that internal changes could be more
problematic.
4. Conclusion
In central government service, austerity measures were introduced just before the 2008
crisis, as a late attempt to apply reforms inspired by the New Public Management, and then
maintained within the new conditions of crisis. These measures, very different from those
implemented in the southern European countries, nevertheless constitute a significant
change in a long-term trend of growth in the Government’s operating costs, even if they did
not reduce the budget deficit. For local government, apart from a few organisations that
were fragile for reasons of underdevelopment or as a result of toxic loans, growth was still
the order of the day after 2008. However, signs of change are emerging and the need to
contain budget growth is gradually being recognised.
21
The question of austerity was not emphasised at the start of the policy of reorganisation and
workforce reductions launched by the Government in 2007. Subsequently, moreover,
austerity was in contradiction with policies that, in 2008, were more aimed at kick-starting
the economy. In the end, it is only with the arrival of the new socialist government in 2012
that budget constraints have become a central argument, although the term “austerity” is
still not employed. This new government declares its wish to combine targeted growth in
staff numbers in certain areas (in particular education and the creation of government
subsidised jobs) with the pursuit of savings in other sectors. Limiting the deficit further
entails an increase in taxes.
The measures to restrict public expenditure and its underpinnings were mostly not discussed
with the unions. The freezing of the value of the civil service “point” was imposed
unilaterally and the Government restructuring plans decided in advance without
consultation with the social partners. Partial, compensatory discussions took place, however,
on new salary scales for certain grades. When it came to implementation, the flexibility
evinced in previous reorganisation processes, in particular in the relation between
departmental directors and local union organisations, seems to have largely disappeared.
Local social dialogue in the technical committees is now largely restricted to matters of
adjusting social policies or harmonising internal regulations in response to mergers of staff
from different ministries. This absence of social dialogue has not resulted in major social
protests, as was seen with the pension reform, whether with respect to the quantitative
measures to reduce employee numbers and wage bills, or the qualitative measures to
reorganise services.
This absence of social dialogue on these two essential dimensions of reform policies is at
odds with the declaration of a desire to relegitimise social dialogue as planned in the Bercy
agreements of 2008 and incorporated into the law of July 5, 2011. The first discussion points
seem to have been ancillary issues such as job security or workplace health and safety. The
efforts embodied in the law to restore the balance of social dialogue in favour of the
technical committees seem to have been largely contradicted in the management of the
biggest reform issue in recent years. And a social dialogue on questions of work organisation
seems difficult in the public service or limited to matters of health and safety. All in all, the
need to manage the crisis seems, at least, to have put the implementation of reform on the
backburner.
In the light of this observation, an approach based on case studies of social dialogue in
municipalities, a subject up to now previously largely neglected in existing research, offers
interesting perspectives. These reveal a capacity for sometimes significant local dialogue
around issues of reorganisation. This dialogue becomes particularly robust when
reorganisation processes have a direct impact on users, which gives reality to the decisions
taken. In this context, original procedures for combining citizen involvement through
participatory democracy and discussions with municipal staff in direct and indirect forms of
participation, emerge as interesting innovations.
22
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24
Appendices
Appendix A
Report on the “Social Partner Meeting”
Location: Paris 18 September
Present:
Paul-Emmanuel Grimonprez: Head of the Office of Local Authority Worker Posts and
Regulations, Central Department of Local Government, Ministry of the Interior; Monique
Gresset, researcher for the Higher Local Government Council; Baptiste Talbot, General
Secretary of the CGT Public Service Union; Michel Angot, General Secretary of the local
government section of the FSU Union (SNU-CLIAS); Dominique Leroux, General Secretary of
the finance section of the CFDT union (central government service); Alexandra Garabige,
Centre for Employment Studies, author of a Ph.D. thesis on social dialogue in local
government.
The meeting of the social partners was held at the end of the research process, and partly
with people who had previously been interviewed within that framework. It was not used to
define the field of study but to discuss the analysis on the basis of an initial draft report, and
to pursue certain questions that remained open, with a focus on three areas.
The broad lines of the analysis were agreed by all the participants: the effectiveness of local
social dialogue in conditions of conflict, the difficulty of identifying a representative of local
employers at national level, the absence of social dialogue about the general public policy
review, the recognition of the risk of union militants becoming involved in the day-to-day
monitoring of cases of psychological damage.
The diversity of municipal conditions was regularly stressed. Very small municipalities have
no formal social dialogue process. Very large cities may have their traditions. For example,
Marseille with an employment market controlled by one union, Strasbourg with a very high
level of unionisation, operating in ways similar to the German model. The city of Paris also
has a highly structured framework, but with discussions fragmented between services and
conflict between unions.
Austerity seems to be gradually becoming a reality in local government. Certain local
authorities have declared policies on this issue, for example the General Council of the Alpes
Maritimes region, which has reduced its workforce by 10%, or the General Council of the
Rhône, which has frozen its wage bill. In other places the process is more discreet, but staff
replacement is increasingly less automatic, and local government activities outside their
specific field are under threat.
The importance of the users is recognised, but with varying degrees of ambiguity.
25
The difficulties of assessing social dialogue partly arise from the conditions in which
information circulates. On the central government side, prefects who are involved in social
conflicts try to calm the situation rather than report back to their ministries. And as regards
the unions and mayors’ associations, each side tries to maintain its records on conflicts and
the advantages gained here or there, as bargaining chips in negotiation. The question of
unequal treatment between municipalities is a source of conflict.
The participants agreed on the existence of contradictory trends in public service
integration. On the one hand, fairly strong centrifugal trends. The legal control maintained in
prefectures on day-to-day management decisions was a method of monitoring rules on
personnel status, in particular for the recruitment of contract workers. This control has
weakened in recent years, due to a lack of resources. Certain rules, regarding the award of
bonuses or the prerequisites for promotion, have been relaxed. The management centres
where social dialogue (in small municipalities) on individual issues is pooled, perform a role
in integrating practices, but certainly decisions are not applied by municipal leaders. On the
other hand, there are tendencies to narrow national and local public services: the creation of
a joint senior civil service council, the greater role allocated to local government
representation in national bodies, or the conditions of application of the mobility law in
favour of staff movements between public service departments, or the idea (contained, for
example in the White Paper put forward by Ludovic Silicani) that local public service is a
model for national public service. However, the idea that central government service should
be seen as different from local government service, with the latter providing a model (e.g.
for C categories who are mostly in public service), is still far from being recognised by the
social partners.
The assessment of the inverted importance of the CAP (joint administrative committees
focusing on individual questions) and the CTP (joint technical committees focusing on
collective issues of organisation and working conditions) in central and local government
service, was acknowledged. It would seem that the CAP are more valued because decisions
are centralised and relate even to internal movements between departments. Given that the
directors of decentralised departments have no room for manoeuvre, they restrict
themselves to presenting reform plans handed down from above, and local union
representatives present their organisation’s national line. The lack of influence of the CTP is
also linked with the fact that they relate to different activities. CTP practices that allocate
police prefectures to the Ministry of the Interior or the probation services to the Ministry of
Justice show how they can work meaningfully.
The future of the Bercy agreements also appears open. At first sight, the signed agreements
seem to have been fairly poorly applied, and political leaders seem hesitant to take the risk
of sacrificing a reform in the absence of a majority agreement. The situation is still very
much one of “non-conflictual non-agreement” or of a “decision elucidated” by discussion
with the unions. However, all participants continue to agree on the the goal of transforming
the responsibility of the different partners through the signature of agreements.
26
Appendix B
List of individual interviews
Administration et employer representatives
Caroline Krykwinski, chef du bureau en charge du dialogue social à la Direction générale de
la fonction publique, ministère de la fonction publique
Mr Grimonprez, Direction générale des collectivités locales, ministère de l’intérieur.
Michel Namura, Syndicat national des directeurs généraux des collectivités territoriales, vice
président chargé des interventions professionnelles.
Geoffroy Adamczyck, chargé de mission dialogue social au sein de l’association des maires
de France.
Philippe Laurent, Maire de Sceaux, président du conseil supérieur de la fonction publique
territoriale
National union representatives
Brigitte Jumel secrétaire générale CFDT fonctionnaires (UFFA)
Jean Claude Lenay CFDT interco (collectivités locales, ministère de l’intérieur)
Jean Baptiste Talbot CGT fonctionnaires
Vincent Blouet UGFF CGT (fonctionnaires territoriaux)
Philippe Crépel CGT santé action sociale
Bernadette Groison secrétaire nationale FSU
Anne Feray FSU
Saint Ouen case study
2 administration representatives
5 union representatives (CGT, CFDT)
Saint Etienne case study
5 administration representatives
3 union representatives (CGT, CFDT)
27