As executives and bosses of large companies use it as a daily communication tool, Twitter has turned against one of them in court. According to information from Echoes, a tweet from Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of Total, promising an exceptional bonus to “All employees”, helped convict the parent company, SA Total, before the Créteil court.
In December 2018, at the heart of the “yellow vests” movement, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, declared that companies would be able to grant their employees a bonus exempt from social contributions and income tax. In the process, Patrick Pouyanné then announced on Twitter, on December 11, 2018, the payment of a “Exceptional bonus of € 1,500 for all [les] employees in France ”.
??? After a day of listening & debates and given the good results of @Total in 2018, we propose to our… https://t.co/QaSQrEAXoN
400 euros of the 1,500 promised
However, employees of the Aviation Fuel Supply and Storage Company (SASCA), which is a 60% -owned subsidiary of Total, only received 400 euros, by decision of the management. The company’s CGT, tweet in support, then brought the case to justice and it won, according to a judgment of the Crétail judicial court rendered on November 6, 2020 and consulted by The echoes.
Thus, the parent company is ordered to pay the 200 SASCA employees an additional 1,100 euros, to reach the 1,500 promised by Mr. Pouyanné. Still according to the economic daily, the tweet was however judged ” insufficient ” by first instance judges to characterize the group’s commitment to its employees, including those of SASCA. But an internal document, addressed to Total employees – but not to those of SASCA – and which announced that “Given the national context, all employees of Total and its subsidiaries in France would benefit from an exceptional bonus of 1,500 euros”, was admitted into the record at second instance.
A judgment in the form of a warning for all companies, while the “Macron bonus” system is renewed in 2021 for all employees, under a certain level of remuneration. Left to the free choice of the employer, it can go up to 1,000 euros. However, there is something new about the mechanism compared to its original version: the premium may reach 2,000 euros in companies and branches. “Who will have either concluded a profit-sharing agreement by the end of the year, or opened negotiations on the valuation of the trades” of the second line, the executive had said after a social conference in March.