This is one of the main measures of a bill resulting from a union-management agreement. The Assembly voted on Tuesday, June 27 the obligation for profitable companies with 11 to 49 employees to establish at least one “value sharing” mechanism. Concluded in February in a context of high inflation, the national interprofessional agreement (ANI) plans to extend this type of measure to employees of small businesses, whereas today it mainly concerns medium and large businesses.
This may be a profit-sharing scheme, profit-sharing scheme, employer’s contribution to an employee savings plan, or payment of a value-sharing bonus (“Macron bonus”). The article adopted by MPs on Tuesday (117 votes for, 17 against, coming from the left) makes it mandatory for companies with 11 to 49 employees, whose net profit represents at least 1% of turnover for three years consecutively, to set up at least one of the existing systems.
The measure takes the form of a five-year experiment, starting in 2024.
Participation is a profit redistribution mechanism, currently mandatory in companies with more than 50 employees, while profit-sharing is an optional bonus linked to non-financial results or performance. These arrangements come with tax benefits.
MEPs also adopted on Tuesday an article aimed at speeding up the implementation of participation in companies with 50 or more employees, by removing an existing deadline for those covered by a profit-sharing agreement. On Monday, MPs had already approved a first 5-year experiment to facilitate the deployment of “participation” devices. It would allow companies with less than fifty employees to establish one if they wish, by company or branch agreement, with a specific calculation method different from that applied to larger companies.
All these measures come from the ANI, an agreement signed by four out of five unions (without the CGT), which the government wishes to transpose in a “faithful” way. It must allow, according to the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, to act “for the purchasing power to face inflation”, via “increased solidarity between capital and work”. Apart from the LR group, the oppositions are dubious, the whole of the left as well as the National Rally calling for action first on wages.
