Conventions and Consultation

In 1990 the Base was working flat out.  Just as the rate of launches was being increased, and ever more demands were being made on employees, large disparities in working conditions began to be noticed.  Within the same department, reporting to the same directorate, there were considerable differences in employees' salary packages, in terms of pay, working hours and career prospects, depending on who they were working for.  To improve operational competitiveness and respond to the growing scepticism of site employees, the harmonisation of working conditions therefore became an imperative.

On 18 May 1990, following lengthy negotiations between the trade union authorities and the companies at the Base, a regulatory framework aiming to harmonise the social policies in force for the site - the now familiar Site and Profession Convention (CSP) - was established.  A few months later, on 10 September 1990, in accordance with the Convention's final point which stipulated "the development of structures and methods for allowing permanent consultation between the representative management and trade union organisations," the signatory companies established a voluntary association (under the terms of the French Act of 1901) thus founding the Space Base Employers Union (UEBS).

Acting on behalf of all the signatories, this body is fully committed to its vocation as sole contact point for the representatives of the trade unions and the other social partners.  It wasted no time in establishing a common objective for its members, both pragmatic and ambitious, which is asserted at the head of its statutes: "to provide the permanent links and coordination between [the employers]" that are needed to guarantee that social harmonisation is achieved in a practical, reasonable fashion.

Forming part of a general consultation movement, the UEBS has since largely demonstrated the value of its contribution to social harmony on the Base, even after the site convention was renegotiated in 2006, changing the relationship between the signatories to a certain extent. 

Insofar as Arianespace and CNES were the only signatories of a convention designed as a set of social specifications to be imposed contractually on their suppliers, it became inevitable that the conditions for joining the UEBS would change: henceforth members would no longer be just the CSP signatories, but all companies operating at the Space Base.  Despite this, the largely formal modification in no way changed the association's basic mission.  Quite the opposite, according to the RSB: since switching to Industrial Contracts, the forum for coordination and dialogue between all the companies at the Base, represented by the UEBS, is needed more than ever.  It must not be forgotten that everyone is working together, towards the same goal.  From this point of view, regardless of the organisation currently in force on the Base, it has to face the same questions and social issues as in the past.  To ensure the best visibility of shared social issues, it is more important than ever to guarantee both top-down and transversal coordination between the different companies which are working together to realise our ultimate objective.