At the end of the social conference in the presence of the social partners, Élisabeth Borne confirmed on Monday the upcoming establishment of a “High remuneration council”. The Prime Minister announced on Sunday the creation of this new body, which will be responsible for examining the question of “low-wage traps” and “proposing answers”, as she indicated in an interview with La Tribune Sunday. “Without replacing the branches or employers, the State must give impetus, guide, and sometimes even sanction,” the Prime Minister then indicated Monday evening. Who sees in this new body a “place of work, exchanges and proposals”.
Why create such an organization? “The grids of certain professional branches are no longer adapted to qualifications. Employees acquire skills that are very useful for the performance of our economy without their remuneration increasing, the head of government responded on Sunday, while dozens of professional sectors have minimum wages below the minimum wage. It’s harmful, it makes you lose motivation at work. We have to think about it over time.”
Also read: Wages at the heart of the social conference
Thus, this High Council will have the vocation of “working on all the components of salary and remuneration”, on the way for example in which “we better equip the branches to develop their classifications”, Matignon had already detailed on Sunday. Representatives of trade unions and employers’ organizations, and statistics administrations (Insee, Dares, Drees), and even experts, should sit there. “The rules will be enshrined in law,” said Élisabeth Borne on Monday evening, who announced that the Minister of Labor will conduct consultations with the social partners in December “to define their contours, composition and functioning.”
With a challenge: this new body will have to find its place among the already existing bodies. It will not be a “regulator of social dialogue” as the High Council for Social Dialogue already is, states Matignon. The government will also, with the social partners, “reflect on its articulation” with the group of experts on the minimum wage, set up in 2008.
Even before the confirmation of the installation of this new body, it was the subject of criticism from the oppositions. For example from Xavier Bertrand. The “main proposal (from Élisabeth Borne) at the end of this meeting would be to create a High Council for Remuneration, let’s be serious!”, launched the LR president of the Hauts-de-France region this Monday morning on Franceinfo. The real issue is that we know full well that these branches in which the minimums are below the minimum wage are branches in which salaries are not up to what they should be.”
