Capital Structure Analysis of Britannia

Banking sector in conflict over statutory working week

After the breakdown of negotiations in the banking sector, the French Government's adoption of a draft decree in March 1997, making the structure of the statutory working week more flexible, provoked strike action from all trade unions. This is one more illustration of the problems surrounding collective bargaining at sector level in France. The decree was passed on 9 April.

Complex regulations and ensuing deadlock

In France, regulation of the working week is based on a piece of legislation passed in 1936, which laid down a work schedule spread over five days. Decrees on the application of this law made special provision, in each sector, for the way in which these hours would be organised. The one concerning banking dates from 1937.

Since then, many laws have introduced flexibility into the regulations, especially a 1982 ordinance and laws passed in 1987 and 1993, but when it comes to the collective work schedule, such flexibility measures are only possible if a derogation is introduced by collective agreement, either across the whole sector, or in the workplace itself. Negotiations on this issue took place in the banking sector in 1994 and 1996, but proved unsuccessful.

The employers' organisation, the French Banking Association (Association française des banques, AFB), then filed a complaint with the Conseil d'Etat (the highest administrative court) to ask for the abolition of the 1937 decree. The main argument used was that it violates free competition, since other organisations with financial activities (especially the Crédit Agricole, savings banks, and the Post Office) are not subject to this decree.

An attempt at negotiation

Reacting to the AFB's offensive, the unions demanded the reopening of negotiations. The Minister for Employment convened a joint management-union committee on 7 March 1997, to study the possibility of an overhaul of the 1937 decree.

First among the AFB's demands is...