(en) France, Coordination of Anarchist Groups CGA - Working
world - Flexicurity capitalism disguised as partnership (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation]
Happy as a boss in Denmark. To believe strange rankings published every year, the Danes
are the happiest people in the world. And the source of this national happiness would be a
barbarous neologism sounding like a magic incantation to socio-liberal ears, flexicurity
(or flexicurity). The European Union has made since the Lisbon summit in 2000 the "major
driver of its strategy," pointing seven years later the need for "common principles of
flexicurity". In France, it is to achieve a "flexicurity French" that was finalized in
2013 the National Inter Agreement (ANI), an agreement that still marked for president of
MEDEF, Laurence Parisot, "an event in the economic and social history of our country.
First, because this law finally settles flexicurity in the labor market. "More recently,
visiting Denmark in November 2014, the Prime Minister Manuel Valls saw in the local social
system a" source of inspiration ". But what then are the springs of this model introduced
as the new horizon?
According to its advocates, flexicurity (flexicurity in VO) would be the perfect
combination of flexibility for companies and security for employee · e · s. On the one
hand, labor law is hardly regulated, giving businesses a flexibility that would encourage
hiring and ensure full employment. On the other, the employee · e · s benefit from a very
protective unemployment insurance. In short, as we say in Newspeak, a win-win partnership.
Nevertheless, even by removing the issue of wage labor for tou · te · s as ideal,
laboratory analysis of the Danish flexicurity, one suspects, do not keep promises.
Side flexibility, no complaints. In Denmark, the law does not define this period of
working time. If, in fact, it is 37 hours a week in most collective agreements, nothing
obliges a company to join a collective agreement. No minimum wage or employment contract
model, the negotiations are between employer and trade unions. The legal age of retirement
was recently pushed back to 67 years.
Not guarantee the right to strike: it is prohibited for civil servants and severely
hampered for employee · e · s private. Strikes can take place in the context of
negotiating a new collective agreement. They must respect a "peace obligation" to be
passed by 75% of a deemed competent AG, subject to notice 14 days prior to triggering,
etc. The point strikes, beaded, zeal is prohibited. In short, Denmark, rarely strike.
Finally, the dismissal procedure is very restrictive. Simply boss to argue for a "lack of
skills" of / the employee · e or economic difficulties of the company. The employer does
not have to pay compensation, except from 12 years of service (1 months salary in
compensation). And yet, this rule does not apply to "blue collar" to the workers so.
Unemployment, a worker · e · touches 60% of their salary for up to 2 years without
degression (against 90% for 3 years until 2010). It is still necessary for it he / she has
paid unemployment insurance, affiliation to a fund being optional. In parallel, control of
unemployed · is · s is very strict and accompanied by a host of obligations: to go to the
appointment of the employment agency, meet at least four employers a week for training,
willing to change jobs and even region ... In flexicurity language, we speak of
"activation of the job seeker." The boxes of stoppages insurance are private organizations
licensed by the state and close the trade unions. They are financed by taxes and
contributions by the worker · is · s. Employers, themselves, do not pay. Moreover, they
contribute to almost nothing (12% of the remuneration of / the employee · e - mostly a
pension contribution - against 41% in France). As for the corporate tax, it is located in
the low average of rich countries, 22% (33% in France, 39% in the US).
Thus, we see, the organization of the Danish labor market is only of liberal inspiration.
It is based on the mystification of a report of equals between the worker and the
employer, as if the subordinate relationship of the former to the latter reported to a
free choice, while the lack of legal constraint places the employer in a position of
omnipotence. The restrictions on strikes, it prohibits collective claim. The lack of
universal rights in favor of the only co hypothetical by branch or company, it impedes
collective awareness of class interest, no being housed in the same boat. And she rushes
in poverty and isolation those working in union deserts. It organizes the capture by the
haves an increasingly important part of the wealth created in production, since it limits
the share redistributed to worker · is · s the only direct salary. The deferred /
socialized, this part of the remuneration that the owner does not pay directly to the
worker but to the social insurance funds, which is then redistributed to tou · te · s form
of unemployment insurance, health, etc. n not exist.
In fact, the overall compensation of worker · is · s is then particularly low. Flexicurity
even exempts capital from liability on the social consequences of its production choices
or profitability since it does not contribute to the unemployment insurance and only
marginally to social protection. Worse, while flexicurity organizes job insecurity, they
are workers-his-es that are pointed as responsible for their situation of unemployment,
and ordered es to adapt to the needs of capital. Flexibility yes, security, no.
In these conditions, it may seem surprising that Denmark does not live a social situation
of chaos.
If the system works is that a long time, he kept one of his promises, that of almost full
employment. However, if full employment has been, it is not due to the flexibility, it is
even more against it.
Denmark lives mainly in exports. Global growth period, the economy was doing well so. Then
there was the crisis of 2008-2009, exports have collapsed, unemployment soared ... twice
as fast as in neighboring countries, and for good reason. The employee · e · s being less
protected · e · s elsewhere in Europe, they are is fired faster! Since then, the
unemployment rate has fallen (around 5%). Except that in the meantime the compensation
rules have been tightened. By the admission of a Danish banker, if unemployment falls, it
is "artificially, through the reduction of benefit periods." Statistically, if a lot of
its employment-seekers were scratched es of unemployed again, they were not as numerous,
its back to work.
Beyond the issue of unemployment, the pillar that best ensures the sustainability of the
system is fairly extensive social coverage lavished by the state: free care and
kindergartens, scholarships paid to students, etc. 34% of GDP is spent on social
protection (against an average of 29% for the whole of the European Union). And that is
the stroke of genius of flexicurity, to believe Danish · es that their system is secured
and redistributor. It is not.
Since the companies pay little tax, since they do not contribute to a deferred salary /
socialized that does not exist, since capital is hardly taxed, which pays for social
spending? Well, all the others. The worker · is · s, the middle and working classes,
precarious, poor, students · e · s. Tou · te · s, however small their income, pay a
minimum of 4.64% basic tax, which then increases with income. To this is added a
contribution of 8% punctured on all income: wages but also pensions and even scholarships.
Following a host of taxes (for pension insurance and health) and finally the ultimate
unjust tax, VAT, among the highest in the world (25%). Since the tax is strong, the rich
could pay a lot of fear. Do not worry, if there is still a higher rate for very high
incomes, the state has taken care to limit the overall tax rate to 51% of revenues.
In proportion, therefore the poor who contribute most to the redistribution, giving more
than the rich to care or nurseries presented as free (and are also "free" for these same
rich). Last bluff, the poor do not complain because they do not realize it, all the taxes
are deducted at source.
By financing social protection through taxation rather than the contribution on
production, the Danish system robs worker · s · is a potential collective management of
solidarity to give all power to the state. It institutionalizes the imbalance in the
contribution between the rich and the other, indirect taxes VAT striking type everyone the
same amount regardless of income. Finally, it weakens social protection, subject to the
vagaries of "vibrations", "crises" ... The state may, on its own, delete overnight
provision. In Denmark, immigrant populations have first undergone in recent years,
immediate cuts in social coverage.
If flexicurity is primarily a specifically Danish system, practices and ideological
foundations appeal the ruling classes elsewhere in Europe, who draw a method and arguments
to assume an increasingly important part of the wealth produced. Presented in a favorable
light (happiness, full employment, social protection, lack of social conflicts) by
politicians and the mainstream media, this "give and take" is gradually a place here in
France , generating new social decline. Gradually, the haves ownership of new sections of
wealth redistributed to far-workers by adapting its two central tools in French
flexicurity system: the dismantling of labor law and the transfer of funding social
insurance production to the tax. Already, we simplify dismissal procedures, universal work
is slid to the right of the negotiations branch by branch or box by box, increasing the
VAT, companies are exempt from their contributions on low wages to switch "redistribution
"on the finances of the State ...
Romain, Montpellier Group
http://www.c-g-a.org/motion/la-flexicurite-le-capitalisme-deguise-en-partenariat
