PM and trade union boss Martinez to discuss labour reforms
The head of France’s CGT trade union has called on workers to "agitate" against the labour reforms that the government is considering at the moment.
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“The have decided to dispense with the Labour Laws leaving fewer rights for workers,” he said.
“Workers need to resist,” he told journalists before a meeting Monday with the the Prime Minster, Eduouard Philippe, and the Minister for Employment, Muriel Pénicaud.
It also reminded workers that there will be a ‘day of action’ although what that means has yet to be clarified.
The meeting on Monday will “give us a chance to express our opposition to 99 percent of the proposals we have heard over six hours of previous discussions,” Martinez added.
At the end of May French President Emmanuel Macron met trade union leaders and employers' representatives on to discuss his plans for labour law reform, a key campaign pledge that he hopes to enact over the summer.
After that meeting Macron, Philippe Martinez of the powerful CGT confederation said he had the impression that the September deadline had become less definite.
The suggestion was immediately denied by a statement from the president's office, which added that the changes would be passed by decree, another controversial proposal.
Macron also met the leaders of two other union groupings, the CFDT and Force Ouvrière (FO), before moving on to employers' groups, starting with the very vocal Medef, which has enthusiastically supported changes to labour law.
Laurent Berger of the CFDT, the only major union to support the previous government's labour reforms, commented that the president seemed "determined to carry them out" but "ready to listen", while FO's Jean-Claude Mailly said he felt there was "room for manoeuvre".
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