Tuesday, June 25, 2013
C1.23 (Oudemanhuispoort)
Although controversial among economists, the idea that “excessive” labour market regulation and employment protection are at the root of unemployment has been prominent in the public debate on economic policy in Europe at least since the 1990s. Protection of regular employment is also blamed for fuelling labour market dualism; the alleged necessity for employment flexibility leading to the development of temporary contracts: the protection of insiders is taken to be responsible for the plight of outsiders. In that context, a policy proposal was made (Cahuc & Kramarz, 2004) aiming to abolish the distinction between regular open-end employment contracts and fixed-term contracts. These would be replaced by a unique labour contract with a degree of employment protection, basically the firing cost, increasing with tenure. That proposal was incorporated in his program by Nicolas Sarkozy during his 2007 presidential campaign but never implemented after his election. A question on the desirability of the “contrat unique” was included in the 2012 post-electoral survey, as the issue had again surfaced in the presidential debate. Using the answers to the question, this paper proposes an empirical analysis of the possible social basis for a significant policy move towards flexibilising the French labour market, held to one of the most ‘rigid’ according to OECD standards. Several hypotheses are tested. A first idea is that the implementation of the contrat unique would transform the French labour market into a flexible market characteristic of a liberal market economy and mark a significant departure from the nonliberal varieties of capitalism with which France is usually associated. One may thus expect that the social base traditionally in favour of a neoliberal transformation of the French model (self-employed, high income earners, private sector executives...) would be the main support of the contrat unique. A class-based cleavage should therefore prevail. Alternatively, if broadly defined labour market outsiders believe that the implementation of the contrat unique should lead to a weakening of labour market dualism and hence to an improvement of their own situation, they should join the ranks of the supporters of labour market deregulation. A cross-class coalition could therefore emerge. Results of the tests made on the 2012 post-electoral survey do not support the latter hypothesis. Using various indicators of the status of outsiders (employment status, age, gender...), one tends to reject the hypothesis that a cross-class coalition in favour of labour market deregulation exists. In fact, the social support for the contrat unique resembles the traditional social base of the neoliberal right and the “outsiders” hold a marginal place in it.
