Deleted by the Senate, the amendment which carried the sanctions for companies recalcitrant to telework should reappear, in a softened version, indicates Élisabeth Borne.
Companies do not play the teleworking game enough, insists Elisabeth Borne. “We see that the numbers are stagnating“, Estimates the Minister of Labor, based on a Harris Interactive poll which established that, the week of January 3 to 9, only 60% of employees who can easily telecommute did so, compared to 80% last spring.
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As a stick, the government had added an amendment establishing administrative fines for recalcitrant companies in the bill establishing the vaccine pass. But this amendment was struck from the text by the Senate. After the failure of the Joint Joint Committee (CMP) to agree on the bill, the text must return to the hands of the deputies. And the government intends to take advantage of this opportunity to re-vote the amendment which imposes sanctions on companies, in a lighter version.
“We are going to reinstate an administrative sanction. But we also want to reassure small businesses about the level of the sanction. We have therefore decided to lower the maximum amount to 500 euros per employee [qui ne bénéficierait pas de mesures de protection] maintaining the ceiling at 50,000 euros“, thus detailed Élisabeth Borne. A significant reduction since previously, the ceiling per employee was 1000 euros.
If the amendment were voted on by the deputies, the sanctions could in principle fall if an employee who can is not teleworking, or if it is found in the company that wearing a mask and disinfection measures do not are not respected.
Sanctions contested
These administrative fines, discussed in recent weeks with the social partners, have been coolly received by the employers’ organizations. The Medef thus declared itself at the end of December “opposed to the principle [d’une amende], whatever the amount, because it is a bad blow to trust between the government and companies, all the more unfair as they have been exemplary in the crisis“. The CPME for its part criticized a “ineptitude“.
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Intended to put pressure on companies, this device could however suffer from a problem of feasibility. France has fewer than 2,000 labor inspectors for 3.9 million companies (Insee, 2017). In total, the ministry hopes to see 5,000 checks carried out per month.