Laure Joncour: Good Afternoon, Marie-Thé
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: Good Afternoon, Laure
Laure Joncour: I thought you could update us on the most recent news on employment law, and I have heard about a very recent case regarding the working time of those employees whose working time is calculated in a number of days rather than in a number of hours.
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: Yes, you’re right. The system is indeed very favorable to employers, as they do not have to count the number of hours worked by their employees, and they do not have to pay overtime if the employees work more than 35 hours per week.
Laure Joncour: And I understand the issue at stake was to decide upon the validity of such a system which was, of course, of some cause of concern for the employers and their lawyers.
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: That’s correct. In fact what happened is that the Council of Europe considers that the system was no compliant with the European Social Charter as it exceeded the maximum weekly working time. But fortunately, the French Supreme Court did not invalidate the system but preferred to add some limitations on its use.
Laure Joncour: So to implement such system, we need to do it through a Collective agreement. What other limitation did the Supreme Court added?
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: In fact, the Court emphazise the fact that employers must absolutely comply with the provisions of their Collective agreement and in particular with those provisions guaranting health, safety and the employee’s rest.
Laure Joncour: And what are the sanctions if you do not respect those provisions or if your Collective agreement does not contain such provisions?
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: In such a case, the employees will be entitled to claim for overtime for the past five years. There can also be penal sanctions and finally given the employers would have not calculated the employees’ working time, it is very likely that the employees would be successful in their claim.
Laure Joncour: So it is very important to check your Collective agreement to respect strictly the provisions and if you do not have such provisions in the Collective agreement, to renegotiate it.
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: Yes, absolutely.
On another topic, I think it is important also to talk about a new law which will come into force at the beginning of next year and which relates to equality between men and women and also to the severity of working conditions.
Laure Joncour: And are there any new obligation in this regard?
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: Yes. The obligation is that Companies employing at least 50 employees must implement an action plan.
Laure Joncour: And what are the sanctions if you do not respect this?
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: If you fail to implement the plan you incur a penalty in a maximum amount of 1 % of the employees’ remuneration.
Laure Joncour: Very interesting. Thank you very much Marie-Thé.
Marie-Thérèse Eugénio: Thank you very much Laure.
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