DECENTRALIZATION OF COLLECTIVE-BARGAINING AND MANAGEMENT OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN FRANCE

The 1982 Auroux laws in France served to bring unions and enterprises closer together. Whereas historically labour relations had been based on confrontation between a labour movement in which the ''revolutionar y'' spirit had prevailed for a long time, and on a management which ha d carefully avoided the introduction of collective bargaining in firms , the 1980s were characterized by a significant move towards decentral ization of negotiations to enterprises and establishments. In the firs t part of this article, it is shown that, in fact, the Auroux laws con tributed to this change: in 1981, barely 1500 enterprise - level agree ments were registered in France; in 1992 there were 6370 such agreemen ts. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out three complementary phenome na. First, the law related to employees' freedom of expression has had limited success: according to a recent report, in reality groups for self - expression seldom function and do so poorly. Weak union involve ment and management participation policies (quality circles) have unde niably contributed to weakening the interest in and importance of thes e groups. Secondly, the growth of enterprise - level collective bargai ning has not resulted in a decline in industry - wide agreements (thei r number has remained stable throughout the decade); nor is their grow th homogeneous (such agreements are increasingly the reality in large industrialsector firms). Finally, the dynamic varies according to the objects of negotiation. Hence, the following observations: a certain i mportance given to salaries in negotiations at both the industry and e nterprise levels, industry - level negotiation giving way to enterpris e - level negotiation regarding work time; a renewal of energy though the volume of agreements remains limited; and interprofessional indust ry - and enterprise - level negotiations on the issue of employment. T he aim of the second part of the article is, precisely, to evaluate th e impact of negotiations on the management of employment relations in two sectors that are at first glance opposites: this interest is based on a study conducted by the two authors in which they examine the man agement of redundant personnel in a sector in crisis (electronics) and the management of labour shortages in a protected public sector (heal th care). Firstly, during recent years programs have multiplied in the electronics sector to deal with layoffs. In order to institute preven tive action, in 1990 and 1991, the social actors established joint com mittees on employment whose mission was to make forecasts of employmen t in the industry in order to formulate ways to deal with the effects of fluctuating employment (forecasts of movement of the workforce, est ablishment of special training programs, and so on). In reality, for r easons related as much to the desire of employers to bring back the ma nagement of employment relations to the level of the enterprise as to the difficulty in adjusting trade union structures to the reality of a specific industry (electronics and not themetallurgical industry, whi ch remains the usual framework for negotiations), these committees hav e scarcely been effective. Furthermore, it was observed that there is a real asymmetry between the enterprise (strategic level where importa nt decisions about employment are made) and the establishments. Within the latter, in spite of rights given to union organizations, they, as well as the local administrations which are sometimes just as powerle ss as themselves, can only negotiate the consequences of strategies el aborated at the group and enterprise levels. Thus one of the major lim itations of the policy of decentralization of industrial relations can be clearly seen here. As regards the health care sector, its system o f industrial relations is structured around a statutory logic regulati ng recruitment, remuneration and employment of permanent personnel. Si nce the hospital reforms of July 31, 1991, with a concern for democrat ization similar to the one which was behind the Auroux laws, dialogue between all actors can take place within a series of councils who are responsible for both investment programs and internal regulations, etc . The fact remains that in the case of electronics, decisions about th e volume of employment are made at the central level (the Ministry): t he volume of employment is thus a fact that the actors cannot negotiat e because it is the result of political arbitration and certain financ ial constraints. This weak union influence on determining factors of e mployment policy was one of the reasons, among many others, for the em ergence of new forms of collective action during the second half of th e 1980s. During the conflicts that characterized this period, nurses a nd auxiliary nurses went beyondunion and institutional channels of com munication in aid of sectorial organizations. This was significant eac h time, the conflicts having a direct impact on topics that normally c annot be debated within the framework of joint committees: such is the case of the level of employment, re-establishment of indexation and r ecruitment terms. This is amply demonstrated in the two sectorial stud ies that were conducted. These two case studies tend to show that in F rance the movement towards decentralization not only increases the ten dency to negotiate salary changes, management of work time, and so on in a compartmentalized way, but also makes it more difficult for union organizations to negotiate employment policy determinants at the ente rprise level. Furthermore, beyond differences between the private and public sectors that many researchers have rightly emphasized, it appea rs to us that the two sectors examined continue to have certain common characteristics which reflect quite well the difficulty experienced b y the current French trade union movement in adapting itself structura lly to the new social and economic context.