Employees who earn better, work better and perform more, ultimately supporting the company’s interests. The reasoning, although contained in many manuals, is not yet common in payroll rooms. For this reason, yesterday, the announcement of a multinational of the French caliber caused a stir Michelin that it wants to grant all its 132 thousand employees around the world a salary based on the principle of a “decent wage”, defined at the UN. Everyone, regardless of the latitudes and continents of each location, was also promised a “universal social protection basis”.
Certainly, this is also something to arouse some envy, in times in which the unions in every district denounce salary progressions that are sometimes at a standstill, or in any case often not at the pace of inflation.
According to United Nations Global Compacta decent salary is one that allows a family of 4 (parents and 2 children) to “meet essential needs”, such as food, health, transport and education, but also to put aside some savings and treat themselves to other essential goods. consumption.
In FranceBy law, a minimum wage already exists, currently amounting to 21,203 euros gross per season, revalued regularly to ensure that there are no losses in purchasing power linked in particular to inflation. But now, at Michelin, they judge that it is no longer enough for employees to lead a decent life.
The group’s CEO, Florent Menegauxexplained that this is ultimately “a logical commitment”, mirroring that of employees who “dedicate time to developing and developing the company”.
Certainly, for Michelin, it is also a choice consistent with an entrepreneurial ethic that the founders, the brothers André and Édouard, wanted to listen to the social doctrine of the Church. In the name of the same ethic, the giant has never moved its headquarters from the historic cradle to Clermont-Ferrand, the birthplace of the great philosopher Blaise Pascal, in that mountainous Auvergne which is geographically the rocky heart of France, also representing today one of the transalpine districts most marked by faith.
Concretely, in line with the suggestions of theUN on the so-called “living wage” (or subsistence wage), Michelin intends to align salaries according to the vital needs of workers, thus detaching them at least in part from the sole classic criterion of union bargaining. This will, in fact, also imply a differentiated calculation based on the actual purchasing power in each geographical location. For the same tasks, for example, the paycheck of those who work in an expensive capital like Paris will be heavier, compared to those who work in more peripheral capitals and areas, or in countries around the world with a lower cost of living.
Florent Menegaux, CEO of Michelin – Michelin
Second Florence Viala, responsible for the “remunerations” of the group, the “decent wage” actually calculated will be on average between 1.5 and 3 times the legal minimum wage, where it exists. In Paris, the wages thus revised will start from a “decent” minimum base of 39,638 euros gross, while in China they will be of the order of 69,312 yuan (around 9 thousand euros), or more than double the national minimum wage which serves as a reference, around to 29 thousand yuan. Employees in the Brazilian offices will also be able to see a strong “leap”, given that there they will start from a base of 37,347 reals (6,653 euros), against the current minimum reference threshold of 16,944 reals.
The basic conditions of “universal social protection” granted by Michelin will also generally be more generous than those in force, which will also provide for example a 4-week paternity leave without loss of salary, alongside maternity leave which will last at least 14 weeks. The group will also show solidarity with the family of one of its deceased employees, who will be granted the equivalent of at least one year’s salary, in addition to a subsidy for their children’s education. The strategy was decided after consulting the NGO Fairwage, which campaigns for the extension of the “decent wage”. But Michelin considers the choice an investment: «We want people to fully engage in what they do», clarified CEO Menegaux. Among the multinationals most often cited as being committed in this direction are, for example, Unilever, L’Oréal, Microsoft or Hitachi.
The Cfdt, the first French trade union, reacted positively, but maintained that there are also controversial disparities in treatment within the group, for example in terms of productivity bonuses, which are proportionally much more generous for managers.
In the industrial field, however, the news reaches France while controversy continues to rage over the record remuneration of the CEO Stellantis (automotive group born from the merger between Fiat-Chrysler and Psa Peugeot-Citroën, with registered office in the Netherlands), Carlos Tavares, who received 36.5 million in 2023, corresponding to 1,586 years of salary of an assembly line worker French with temporary contract.
