The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes labor administration wrongly validated, on July 30, the agreement on the job protection plan (PSE) of FedEX, the parcel delivery specialist , which aims to cut 276 out of 5,990 positions in the FedEx Express France entity (road transport)? In any case, minority unions will ask, on November 16, the administrative court of Lyon to cancel this validation. According to them, the control carried out by the regional directorate of the economy, employment, work and solidarity (Dreets) was not sufficient, in particular as regards the definition of the professional categories affected, which they deem inconsistent.
The application of this PSE began with a period for submitting requests for voluntary departures, from August 3 to 21. Some employees whose positions were eliminated opted for voluntary departure, because they were guided “By fear”, denounces Stéphanie Lavalette, union delegate of the Autonomous Confederation of Labor. Their fear: to be reclassified in a position which does not correspond to their skills and to be finally dismissed for professional insufficiency, without being able to benefit from the PSE. “This pushed them to ask for a voluntary departure in disaster”, relieves Mme Lavalette, for whom these “Forced voluntary departures” concern “A hundred people”.
Among them, employees with twenty-five or thirty years of seniority, currently “Client financial services managers”, who the company would ask to become “Customer service managers”, positions for which you need to be fluent in English.
In fact, within the same professional category, people whose job is terminated have “Obligation” to take the positions left vacant by employees on voluntary departure whose position was not abolished, explains Mr.me Lavalette.
Grouping of job titles
This situation has its origins in the revision of the PSE, after the signing of the majority agreement, on June 3, by the CFDT and by the SNSG house union. Indeed, the workforce reductions were not listed by job category, but by job title, which is illegal.
To get the green light from the Dreets, FedEx Express grouped job titles together to form categories within which the dismissal order criteria would be applied. But without taking into account the geographical areas of the jobs concerned.
“Consequently, an administrative manager in Tours, for example, whose post is abolished, may be forced to take a post in Rennes”, according to Mme Lavalette, for whom the agreement is inapplicable as it stands.
“Management corrected the agreement unilaterally, deplores a representative of the CFE-CGC. The Dreets should have required FedEx to make an amendment to the agreement “, which would have resulted in a negotiation and, perhaps, would have avoided these anomalies.
Asked, the CFDT, the first union in the company, did not answer us. The management of FedEx either. For her part, the Dreets has indicated that she does not want to comment on an ongoing case.