Social right. Resulting from the work of the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, Law No. 2021-1104 of August 22, 2021 on the fight against climate change and strengthening resilience to its effects imposes on the employer, in companies of at least fifty employees, to provide the social and economic committee (CSE) with information on “the environmental consequences of its decisions”.
These exchanges take place both within the framework of recurring information and consultations and during mandatory consultations relating to the organization, management and general operation of the company, listed in Book II of the Labor Code.
The CSE must also be entered ” in proper time “ when a restructuring and downsizing project involves the development of a job protection plan (PSE, ex “social plan”), to issue an opinion on the planned operation and its terms of application .
“An irregular PSE for lack of information may in particular lead to the nullity of all dismissals and voluntary departure measures contained therein”
In practice, in the case of an economic dismissal of at least ten employees, two consultations of the CSE must be carried out before putting implementation of the PSE: the first relates to measures having an impact on the general operation of the company and the volume of staff, the second is specific to layoffs and the measures intended to avoid them.
However, the Climate and Resilience Law has not modified either the rules applicable to ad hoc consultations and information, among which are the provisions concerning collective redundancies for economic reasons, or Book I of the Labor Code organizing the PSE. If we follow, the employer must therefore inform of the environmental consequences at the first consultation… but does he also have to do so at the second?
This question of the scope of the new obligation of information in environmental matters is not purely theoretical: an irregular PSE for lack of information can in particular lead to the nullity of all the dismissals and voluntary departure measures which appear therein .
Disputes on this issue have already been brought to court, in this case before the administrative judge. CSEs have, in fact, criticized the decisions of the labor administration which approved the unilateral documents relating to the planned collective dismissal for economic reasons: they demanded the annulment of these decisions on the grounds that the information and consultation of employee representative bodies would have been irregular, in particular due to the lack of environmental information. For the applicants, with regard to site closures and “relocation” of certain employees, the PSE would not “not climate neutral”.
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