Mhe French union CGT responded to the Civil Service Minister's latest reform proposals on Wednesday with a strike call for the Summer Olympics. Stanislas Guerini had announced in the newspaper “Le Parisien” that he wanted to break the “taboo on layoffs in the public sector”.
“This is shameful,” complained CGT public service secretary general Natacha Pommeret on France Info radio on Wednesday. The method itself is outrageous. Minister Guerini “said absolutely nothing about it” at the meeting with all trade union organizations on Tuesday. “We found out about it from the press,” said the trade unionist indignantly. The minister was acting “in the name of a neoliberal ideology”.
The 42-year-old Guerini had described it in the newspaper as a “distortion of the mission of the public service” if, in the name of guaranteeing jobs, one could not fire employees who did not do their jobs. “Justice means rewarding the committed civil servants and punishing those who do not do their jobs adequately,” the minister said. He explained on radio station France Inter on Wednesday that he was still ruling out “economic layoffs.”
Guerini led Macron's presidential party as general secretary between 2018 and 2022 and is promoting more meritocracy in the civil service state. The first version of the bill to reform the public service provides for performance-based pay for civil servants and greater permeability between employees of the central state, local authorities and the public hospital system. In addition, “expanded sanction options” are planned for “professional inadequacies”. The draft has been presented to trade unions and employers.
Guerini advocated “further developing and modernizing” the public service. “We have civil servants who have fully arrived in the 21st century, but a system that is sometimes stuck in the 1980s,” he said. He pointed out that in 2023 only 13 civil servants were fired for inadequate professional performance.
The eight main unions condemned what they saw as a “dogmatic” reform that “does not address any of the concerns raised by public servants.” “Our organizations do not call for this reform,” wrote CGT, FO, CFDT, UNSA, FSU, Solidaires, CFE-CGC and FA-FP in a communiqué. They considered the increase in civil servant salaries to be more urgent. The consultations should continue until the summer and the bill will go to parliament in the fall. The “dismissal of a civil servant due to inadequate professional performance” is already in the Civil Service Act. But there are no concrete implementing regulations. Minister Guerini has also decided to address the issue of working hours and increasing sickness rates. He asserted that it was not a budgetary measure. The government is currently under great pressure as at least another 20 billion euros need to be saved in government spending.
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