Workplace unionism under decentralised bargaining in France: a case study of the CGT in the car industry

• Date: 01 November 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12191
• Author: Ruth Reaney,Niall Cullinane
• Published date: 01 November 2017

Workplace unionism under decentralised

bargaining in France: a case study of the

CGT in the car industry

Ruth Reaney and Niall Cullinane

ABSTRACT

Considering recent theoretical accounts on the trajectory of French unionism under

localised bargaining, this article examines potential consequences for the country’s

traditionally largest radical union, Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT).

Deploying a case study of CGT at PSA Peugeot Citroёn and Renault in the years

since the 2008 automotive crisis, the article observes a persistent pattern of militant

opposition within company and plant union sections. Company bargaining structure,

interunion reformist collaboration and electoral considerations are identified as work-

place mechanisms reinforcing CGT actions at this level.

1 INTRODUCTION

The increasing substitution of sectoral agreements for those struck at company and

plant is an established European trend. In France, collective bargaining has histori-

cally been conducted at sector level with central agreements concluded between

employer associations and unions. Decentralisation of bargaining to the company

started from the early 1980s, although the principle of favourability forbade company

agreements from providing less favourable terms than those agreed at sector. This

principle has been significantly diluted in recent reforms, which provide greater

autonomy and flexibility in the conclusion of company-level agreements (Marginson,

2015). Such trends have been accompanied by reforms in union representativeness,

whereby electoral audiences at workplace determine bargaining capacity, rather than

presumptions of national representativeness. Recent literature on French industrial

relations hints at diverging trajectories for trade unionism in this context of decentral-

isation. In one strand, greater decentralisation is said to reinforce preexisting weak-

nesses in the unions (Howell, 2009). Exposed to firms’competitive pressures,

workplace unions risk succumbing to a subordinated compliance in ensuring plant

viability. However, an alternative interpretation implies that such risks are

overstated. Drawing on a macrocultural account of French industrial relations, it

proposes a ‘permissive ideational environment’that continues to legitimise and

sustain radical action even amid crisis (Parsons, 2013a; see also Milner, 2002; Milner

and Mathers, 2013; Mathers, 2017).

❒Ruth Reaney, LSE Fellow, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK and

Niall Cullinane, Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, The

Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Niall Cullinane, The

Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK; email: n.cullinane@qub.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 48:5-6, 403–423

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2017 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Given diverging theoretical pathways, the article examines the trajectory of

France’s traditionally largest radical union, Confédération Générale du Travail

(CGT) at company and plant level where competitiveness bargaining occurs to

preserve plant viability. Whilst scholarship has been conscious of a CGT shift from

militancy at the confederal centre (Giraud, 2015), literature suggests that the confed-

eration’s response to bargaining at devolved levels is not well understood. It is diffi-

cult to infer workplace behaviour from national confederal trends given traditions

of union autonomy at sector and company (Thomas, 2013). To contribute to knowl-

edge and understanding, the article focuses on CGT company and plant sections

syndicales (trade union sections), considering how firm competitive pressures impact

radical unions’workplace bargaining and whether responses pull in the direction of

greater cooperation or if more paradigmatic militant stances prevail. Specifically,

the article uses a case study examining CGT in the French automotive industry at

PSA Peugeot-Citroёn (PSA) and Renault across 12 plants over several years after

the automotive crisis of 2008. The article shows CGT adopting a pattern of militant

opposition towards employers despite sustained job loss and threats to plant viability.

We propose several institutional influences encouraging such outcomes. In what

follows, the article develops the study’s rationale, the research design and findings.

The discussion of the case and its potential for more generalised application concludes

the piece.

2 CONTEXT: WORKPLACE BARGAINING AND RADICAL UNIONISM IN

FRANCE

The progressive shift from sectoral to company level bargaining in France has been

shaped by concerns over employer competitiveness, an issue with added significance

in a country where deindustrialisation is pronounced. French manufacturing has

seen its share in value-added terms drop to one of the lowest in the eurozone

behind Italy and Spain (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies,

2014). Since 2007, an estimated 345,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost, with

foreign competition identified as a primary cause (National Institute of Statistics

and Economic Studies, 2014). Competition in the global market has eroded the

competitiveness of French businesses, both in exports and domestically.

In this context, the state has sought to encourage greater workplace bargaining

to aid employer flexibility and bolster competitiveness. Where the ‘favourability

principle’once forbade company agreements from providing inferior terms to those

agreed at sector, ‘derogations’now weaken this practice. The Fillon Law (2004),

Social Democracy and Working Time (2008), Employment Securitisation (2013)

and the Macron Law (2015) expand the range of derogations available. For exam-

ple, company pacts can now provide for less favourable pay that sectoral rates in

exchange for job security where employers face economic difficulties and work

hours can now be fixed independently of industry agreements. In supporting

company-level bargaining, the structure of union representation has been

reorganised. Since 2008, delegates appointed for negotiations have been selected

according to quadrennial elections rather than affiliation to one of the confedera-

tions that had been presumed to be nationally representative (Laulom, 2012). Elec-

tions to plant comités d’entreprise (CE)

1

are now the test of representativeness for

1

Enterprise committees, statutory information and consultation bodies operate at workplace level. Their

equivalent at company level is termed Comités Centraux de l’Entreprise (CCE).

404 Ruth Reaney and Niall Cullinane

© 2017 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd