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Uncertainty lies ahead
30th of April 2025 Article by Christian Bouzols
Christian Bouzols in France on the challenges being faced by cleaning companies during 2025.
There will be no respite for cleaning companies in France as it continues to be faced by the thorny issues of the tax allowances and the wage rises respectively demanded by the employers and the unions - all this within the context of an economic crises in the country.
These companies have therefore begun the new year with the same uncertainties that had been theirs at the end of 2024. The matter of the required tax allowances, which the national assembly had rejected when voting the 2025 budget last December, might be picked up again by the new government in a more favourable way for the cleaning sector, but the uncertainty hasn’t been lifted.
Although a two per cent rise in the minimum wage for cleaners was announced in November last year, the matter of wages and their increase remains a very hot issue for both employers and unions. The parties (the employers being represented by FEP, the French cleaning federation) recently held a tense meeting to discuss the minimum wage, which left the unions quite unsatisfied.
The impoverishment of cleaning workers
“There are no words to describe the attitude of the FEP towards the trade unions (CFDT, CGT and FO) that were present at the meeting and whose intention was to get serious negotiations started,” growled a union representative in a communiqué.
The unions want, among other things, the ending of working hours outside normal hours, the generalisation of daytime work for cleaners and the nullification of a provision allowing for a reduction to 16 in the number of hours worked per week by part-time cleaners, whereas the legally stipulated figure is 24 hours. As a background to these demands, a study by the Alixio research organisation shows a growing pauperisation among cleaners.
Currently, 17.3 per cent of them are on the minimum wage, whereas this proportion was only 11 per cent in 2015. During 2023, there was a reasonable increase in their wages (4.1 per cent), but this didn’t compensate for inflation (4.9 per cent). As regards employers in the cleaning sector and other service industries, their main concern is to have these wage increases passed on to their clients.
The ‘24 solutions’ of the cleaning federation
“Our profit margins are at stake and so is the business model we would need to apply if daytime working were made obligatory, an outcome that is still facing many hurdles,” said a worried cleaning employer, who also mentioned the shaky situation of his industry and the increasingly tight budgeting of the public authorities.
This difficult and uncertain situation seems to be the right setting for the publication by the FEP of a new issue of its ‘24 Solutions’. This deals with the actions to be carried out in respect of wages, employee support, public procurement and tax allowances. This list had originally been presented to the former prime minister, Michel Barnier, and remains current for the new government of François Bayrou.
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