France today lives off the French president, Emmanuel Macron. What does it consist of? It seeks to make the labor market more flexible to create employment and attract investment, for which it provides for a set of measures that generate rejection among the most combative unions.
These are the main points of a reform that will be approved through five decrees that will be signed by the Government on September 22.
1. Setting limits on compensation for unfair dismissal.
Until now, the money that a company had to pay a worker for an unfair dismissal was set by a labor court, which made it difficult to know in advance what its cost would be.
The reform proposes setting limits so that employers know, at the time of hiring a worker, how much their eventual dismissal would mean.
For each year, even incomplete, worked in the company, the maximum compensation will be one month’s salary, up to ten years of seniority. From then on, each additional year adds half a month’s salary, with a limit of 20 monthly payments.
2. Primacy of agreements within the company over the collective agreement.
Employers and workers’ representatives may reach agreements on certain points that do not respect the collective agreement, although it must prevail in aspects such as the quality of work, minimum wages or professional equality.
However, salary premiums or extra payments may be negotiated in each company.
In addition, competitiveness agreements in companies are facilitated, aimed at adapting wages and working hours to the economic context of a given sector.
3. Simplification of dismissals for economic reasons.
The so-called “economic layoffs”, those that a company that has no benefits can resort to, will be easier.
The Government foresees that only the financial results in France of a multinational serve to benefit from this measure, which will allow it to be applied to companies that have profits worldwide if they register losses in France.
In addition, they can also do it by department, so that economic layoffs can be applied within the loss-making branch of a company that, as a whole, generates benefits.
4. Legalization of voluntary withdrawal plans.
Until now, the so-called “social plans”, which organized the voluntary collective reductions in the workforce, did not have a legal body, which the Executive wants to give them by law. This proposal is highly criticized by the unions because they consider that they can help employers get rid of the most veteran of their salary body.
5. Fusion of representative bodies of workers.
The different representative instances of the workers – those released from unions, the works council, those of hygiene, safety and working conditions – will be unified in the Social and Economic Council that each company with more than 50 workers will have to have.
Facebook Comments
Disqus