This Monday morning begins the National Assembly, the debate around the bill on the sharing of added value. The text, following the national inter-professional agreement (ANI) concluded on February 10 between trade unions and employers’ organisations, indicates that SMEs with less than 50 so-called “profitable” employees will be obliged to pay a sum to their employees.
From 4 p.m. until Thursday, the Government Value Sharing Bill will be under consideration in the Chamber. This transposition text of the agreement (ANI) of February 10, 2023 provides in particular for a sharing system for companies with 12 to 50 employees and whose net profit represents at least 1% of their turnover for 3 consecutive years. The SME will then have the freedom to choose the value-sharing system: participation, profit-sharing, value-sharing bonus (PPV or “Prime Macron”), company savings plan contribution or employee shareholding. The experiment will last 5 years.
If the agreement was signed by four out of five unions (without the CGT), according to the Minister of Labor, it is “in line with the reforms since 2017 to revalue work”.
An insufficient bill for the opposition
Since the difficulties of the pension reform, the government wants to move forward by renewing the social dialogue. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was also pleased: “This bill illustrates what we want to do with the social partners, that is to say let them take the lead.” This generalization system is already mandatory in companies with more than 50 employees who must already redistribute their profits via the participation mechanism.
And parliamentarians intend to play their role since they tabled no less than 380 amendments to the bill. If the LR deputies support the “value sharing” devices, which they consider as an “additional remuneration and challenge for employees”, they are considered insufficient for the opposition. The left fears in particular a “circumvention of wages” and accuses the government of “not responding in any way to the question of purchasing power” according to Point.
A “good” news to qualify, therefore, for nearly 1.5 million employees of small businesses, which could become reality as early as autumn 2024, the deputies having advanced by one year the entry into force of the obligation.
