The Political Effects of Accounting Normalization on Trade Unions: An Analysis of Financial Transparency Reform in France
| Author | Rémi Bourguignon,Karel Yon |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12276 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12276
56:2 June 2018 0007–1080 pp. 418–441
The Political Effects of Accounting
Normalization on Trade Unions: An
Analysis of Financial Transparency
Reform in France
R´
emi Bourguignon and Karel Yon
Abstract
The law of 20 August 2008 reformed the representativeness of French unions
by imposing an obligation for ‘financial transparency’. Building on exploratory
research, we address the question of the organizational and political eects of
the new regulation, which point to a traditional debate in union democracy
studies: how do administrative and representative rationalities combine within
trade union organizations?Drawing on interviews with union leaders and finance
ocers at various levels in three major labour confederations (CGT, CFDT
and CGT-FO), we describe the dierent ways unionists have received the new
accounting requirements and translated them into organizational practices and
norms. Going beyond the traditional theses of compatibility and colonization,
we make use of the body of work in critical legal and management studies to
develop an endogenous approach of the relationships between trade unions and
accounting management.
1. Introduction
The law of 20 August 2008 ‘for the renovation of social democracy’
has profoundly altered the French system of industrial relations. Before
this, five national labour organizations benefited from a presumption of
representativenessby the state that allowed them to establishthemselves freely
within companies, participate atdierent levels of collective bargaining, sit on
diverse committees and be publicly funded. Since the law came into force, all
R´
emi Bourguignon is at IAE Paris 1 Panth´
eon-Sorbonne (Sorbonne Business School) and Karel
Yon is at CERAPS (Center for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society)-
CNRS/University of Lille.
C
2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
The Political Eects of Accounting Normalization 419
unions have been on an equal footing and are obliged to demonstrate their
representativeness regularly (B´
eroud et al. 2012). The criteria that establish
this have been redefined and two among them are new and determining. The
first is employees’ votes: representativeness is now dependent on reaching a
threshold in the first round of workplace elections. Moreover, the electoral
score fixes the weight of each union in negotiations. The second regards
finances: trade unions are obliged to have their accounts certified and to
make information about their sources of finance available to the public
(see Box 1).
Box 1. Accounting Obligations Applied to Unions
Since the 2008 law was passed, workers’ and employers’ union
organizations are required to show financial transparency. They must
compile and publish their accounts according to the Authority on
Accounting Norms. The nature of these obligations depends on the level
of the organization’s resources:
rBelow €2,000, unions must keep a record of income and expenditure.
rBetween €2,000 and €230,000, records are kept according to simplified
norms and are registered with employment authorities.
rAbove €230,000, accounts have to be certified by an auditor and
published in the JournalOciel, the ocial gaz ette of the Frenchnational
government.
By making union recognition conditional on electoral audience and
financial transparency, the 2008 reform was conceived as a means of bringing
the unions and employees closer together and as a solution to the social
problem of union institutionalization (Yon 2013). While this rationale may
be obvious as it concerns employees’ votes, it may need further explanation
regarding financial transparency. Transparencyhas become an ‘imperative’ for
both private and public institutions. It is said to have a dual informative and
prophylactic eect, improving accountability and good governance practices
(Hood and Heald 2006; Tapscott and Ticoll 2003). More specifically, in the
context of trade union reform, financial transparency serves the principle
according to which ‘the dues from members should represent the major part
of their revenues, for they are the only true guarantee of independence’.1
The poor ability of unions to self-finance has been a distinctive feature of
trade unionism ‘`
a la franc¸aise’ (Andolfatto and Labb´
e 2006; de Saintignon
et al. 2004) since the end of the 1970s, as the number of workers in unions
has plummeted to around 8 per cent (Visser 2006). A public debate on the
legitimate type of financing for trade unions has emerged since that time
(Bourguignon and Floquet 2016). In a context of neoliberal restructuring of
the state, and of employers’ oensive against the social pact concluded after
the Second World War, trade unions’ heavy reliance on the state has been
increasingly called into question, leading to the development of arguments
C
2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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