EDF expects resistance as it tackles generous staff perks
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Version 0 of 1. France’s state-controlled energy giant EDF faces a showdown with trade unions in an attempt to tackle pay and privileges for senior staff, as the government gears up for a clash over the 35-hour week. The electricity company, which is also a major player in the UK energy market, is attempting to buy staff out of a deal, dating back to 1946, that allows some 30,000 executives and managers to work 32 hours a week or around 196 days a year. The move comes as health chiefs consider a controversial plan to reform the maximum 35-hour working week, one of the pillars of French socialism, in the country’s hospitals. The proposal has brought thousands of medical workers on to the streets and follows an intervention last August by the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, who said companies should be given more flexibility over working time. The EDF talks follow a report by the state auditors, the Cour des Comptes, which declared that salaries at EDF had risen rapidly, above inflation and market rates, with little relation to actual performance, and there was an “accumulation of advantages” including low-cost electricity and cheap loans. EDF first mooted changing what the official auditors described as a “very generous” and “badly controlled” system enjoyed by more than 40% of its staff five years ago, but gave up on reforms after vehement union opposition. Under current rules, as well as their 27 days paid holiday, staff can enjoy an extra 27-31 days of extra time off, known as “recuperation days” (RTT) and generous bonuses. EDF staff also pay around 16 times less than ordinary customers for their electricity at a cost of €381m to the company in 2010. “The advantage is without limit no matter what electric equipment the employee has (including heated swimming pools, for example),” reads the report. In 2011, when EDF tried to revise the cheap electricity tariff, unchanged since 1951, staff went on strike and the company backed down. Other benefits described as “exorbitant for the public purse” included free shares in the company, extra pay depending on the number of children, bonuses for marriages and births, subsidised house and financial assistance with school and university fees for children up to the age of 27 years. The Cour des Comptes found that “despite the crisis” salaries at EDF had increased more rapidly between 2005 and 2011 than in the rest of the economy. |