The statement which is going to follow and which joins in the debates of the congress of November 15^th, 16^th et 17^th, 2002 Cochin in India will lean on a brief historic outline of the experiences of the employees generally  and those of the French employees in particular to try to make the tour of the big questionings with regard to the right of the employees in the world. 

Majorities 

            Every human being is brought except particular case to be lived on professional relations which are the object of a permanent evolution.  To understand the current state of the right of the employees  would be impossible without making reference to the historic events which forged him (it). 

            While the history of the human work goes back up so far that the previous history of the man, the wage-earner (world of the employees) is the object of attention at the level of the public opinion only on the Middle Age. The  royal authority then fixed the conditions of employment. 

            In this period marked by principles of the religious morality, the accent will be put on the equity and moderation where from the idea of a “just salary” which has to allow the one who works to live “according to the way of life corresponding to its condition”. 

            From the middle of the 15^th century the economic aspect takes the step on the social aspect.  We shall speak about the “natural price of the work”, this one depends on the price of the subsistence and on that of things necessary or useful for the upkeep of the worker and his (her) family.  On the other hand there is a “current price of the work” which is the one that really receives the worker and who depends on immediate conditions of the offer and on the demand.  The common theory of this time condemned the employees to have the other hope no than that of the level of life hardly indispensable to the economic life.  Still at the end of the 18^th century and at the beginning of the 19^th century, the conviction of the political leaders was that any obstacle in the spontaneous functioning of the economy would be harmful for all and would not improve the lot of the disavantaged classes.  And so trade union movements were forbidden at first (“law Le Chapelier” of June 14^th, 1791 in France, “the combination laws” of 1799 and 1800 in England). 

            Nevertheless we shall note an evolution of the economic thought due to new theoretical approaches which militate in the sense of an acceptance of the industrial action and even of the utility of this action as factor of  normal functioning of the economic mechanisms. 

            The war of 1914-1918 was the occasion of a profound turnover of the consciousness.  In recognition of the contribution of syndicates to the war effort, the governmental circles accepted the principle already registered since 1914 in the “law Clayton” (USA) according to which: “The work of a human being is not a good nor an article of business”.  Also among the general principles considered by the signers of the peace treaty of 1919 as appropriate to guide the policy of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the article 427 of the aforementioned treaty mentions “the payment to the workers of a salary insuring them a suitable level of life such as we understand it in their time and in their country”.  The consequence of this attitude is  the admittance that the social  and human aspects have to have the superiority on the purely economic aspects.  The salary stops being considered as a price to become an income, an income of a human  being with all that it contains of subjective and objective needs. We finally came to the idea there that it was at the same moment desirable and possible that the authorities exercise a direct action on the determination of salaries and more particularly those whom the only economic forces would tend to fix too low so that needs minima of the interested workers can be satisfied.  Applications of a system of minimum regulations of salaries were observed: 

            * In New Zealand                                 1894

            * In Australia                            1896

            * In the United Kingdom          1914

            * In the United States               1914 

            On the eve of the second world war in 1939, only twenty two states from the forty nine that counted the ILO had ratified the convention relative to the minimum fixation of salaries adopted from 1928. Indeed the economic crisis of 1929 is meanwhile spent there leading once more to the banishment of the social concerns in the background. An adaptation of legislation so national as international on this position was noticed for the period under the excuse of the necessity of boosting the economic activity.  

The French experience 

We shall illustrate the considerations of general order above by the French experience. 

▪ From the Middle Age  till the Revolution of 1789, it was period of the feudal regime 

To defend their positions against the Lords and the Traders, the artisans are going to group together within the Guilds of the Crafts which hold the monopoly of organisation of their profession and which thus fix every working relations.  This rigidly engendered the hardening. 

▪ From 1789 till 1884, the liberal period 

The Revolution inaugurates a regime of the work  which is characterized by the principle of the free enterprise.  It proclaims that  the power to work, is a first right of the man.  But the law Le Chapelier condemns any shape of agreement, grouping aiming at defending of claimed public interests of the workers.  The work as for it is not more than a merchandise as the other one.  The Civil Code of 1804 mentions is only three articles the hiring of service.

The condition of the workers was never so hard as under this period.  It resulted from it the tragic riots of Paris and Lyon following which was voted the first general text of Labour Law on the work of the children in 1841.  This period will also be marked by the failures of the Revolution of 1848 and the Commune which will stress the social cleavages. 

▪ From 1884 till 1936 the period of interventionism of the State

 In 1884, the law Waldeck-Rousseau recognise the legality of the trade-unionism.  The trade union movement develops then quickly with the creation of CGT (French General Congress of Workers) in 1985 and of CFTC in 1919.  Numerous laws will be voted:

-          1892, law on the 10-hour day for the women and the children

-          1893 and 1898,laws on industrial accidents

-          on 1900, law on the generalisation of the 10-hour day

-          on 1906, law on the weakly rest

-          1919, laws on collective agreements and the 8-hour day

-          on 1928, law  on the social insurance 

▪ From 1936 till 1974, the period of collective bargaining

In June, 1936 was signed the “agreement Matignon” which make important headway of the right of the employees (40-hour week, paid holidays of 2 weeks, delegates workers, status of collective agreements, compulsory arbitrage of the collective conflicts).

After the  second world war, a new wave of important reforms will be born:

-          creation of the Works Council

-          creation of the Social Security

The French Constitution of 1946 guarantees solemnly the  individual and collective rights of the employees.  All the aspects of the life of the work are going to be the object bit by bit of a legal protection:

-          law on collective agreements

-          Creation of the SMIG (guaranteed minimum wage)

-          Creation of the insurance scheme unemployment

-          Creation of the national fund of the employment

-          Law on the protection of the maternity 

May 1968 and its general strike will cause  jump forward of the right of the employees in France.  The report of Grenelloe on May  27^th, 1968 will be applied by a sort of mutual consensus. 

▪ From 1974 to our days the period of the neoliberalism

Under the excuse of the “crisis”,  numerous economic measures were taken and had as consequence the sensitive slowing down of the dynamics of the contractual policy.  The reforms especially aimed at accompanying the crisis.

-          organisation of the dismissal

-          social welfare of the unemployed persons

-          Promotion of rules and negotiations which aim at softening the Labour law

-          Reform of the Industrial Tribunal 

On the whole, in spite of the important change intervened in the French political life in 1981 and the new rights of the workers which arose from it, the French experience is only confirming the heavy tendency maintained under the shape of a pendulum movement which puts successively in the foreground the social concerns then the  economic concern.

Characteristics

            We can be now interested in the characteristics of the right employees.  It is the moment to clarify indeed the object of our debate.  He is an employee, the one is who has only to live and make his family live his work.  As such :

-          he is a man having fundamental needs

-          he is actively involved of a contract which settles its work relations with his employer.

-          Finally, he is a citizen to whom inalienable rights must be recognised. 

On the basis of the realities above it exists according to the sectors and the countries today, a set of rules which govern relations between:

▪ Two persons who signed a contract of employment

▪ Between the social partners

▪ Subscribers, insures persons and Social Security Office

To these rules it is necessary to add the right of the continuous vocational training.

In spite of  the pendulum movement above described, we shall notice that in a general way:

▪ The right of the employees knew a constant expansion but with an unequal speed from a sector to the other one, from a country to the other one.

▪ This expansion has a progressive side and was made in a sense often favourable to the employee.  Indeed, the law and the rules constitute lower limit conditions which we cannot break. 

▪ In the course of time the role of the political power increased because the main source of the right of the employees (constitutions, laws, regulations)emanate from its authority.  Such a situation transforms the right of the employees into a privileged cyclical tool. 

Inventory of fixtures 

      Beyond the portrait robot above aketched it is clear that there is a real difficulty today to draw up a reliable cartography of adoption/stake in work and especially the respect for the right of the employees at the level of our planet.

      We shall give only some examples to support these comments.

....More half of the 184 agreements of ILO adopted till now are linked to questions of health and safety.  But their ratification by countries are still very week, and the ILO assert that “the accidents do not occur, they are caused” (source : IEMO Newsletter, n51-3/5,2002)....Unsustainable modes of production kill every year more than 1.3 million workers, i.e. near the double of the victims of the armed conflicts.  12,000 are children, 335000 are attributable in occupational accidents and 325 000 in professional diseases caused for the greater part by dangerous substances.  We register every year more than 160 million new cases of wounds and professional diseases. (Source : IEMO Newsletter n 52-9.2002). 

Almost flooded in this dark picture, there are some successful examples of coverage of the social by the beneficiaries as it is the case at the Energy workers of Italy with ARCA and at those of France with the CCAS. 

The future

      The globalisation creates the conditions of making humdrum the legal and judicial instruments at the level of States.  It leads to more and more vast groupings which at first privilege the economic to the detriment of the social.  The social laws seem not  to base more than on vague foundations even already void in certain cases.