The aim is to put in place faster and more dissuasive sanctions.
It was one of Prime Minister Jean Castex’s most important announcements on Monday evening: French people whose profession allows it must expect, over the coming weeks, to return to telework at least three days a week. This Tuesday, during a videoconference meeting with the social partners, the Minister of Labor Élisabeth Borne went back on this turn of the screw and announced a new measure: administrative fines for companies reluctant to telework. These should be enshrined in law through an amendment to the bill strengthening the tools for managing the health crisis.
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The objective: “put in place more dissuasive and faster sanctions (of an administrative nature)», But also, as indicated by the Ministry of Labor in Figaro, “create a deterrent effect”For companies that would be reluctant to place their employees in telework. “We have feedback that indicates there are recalcitrant companies“, We still add on the side of the ministry.
“When companies do not play the game today, it involves criminal penalties. It is long and, to simplify this, administrative sanctions will be proposed. The idea is to set it up for companies that do not really play the telecommuting game, not when there is a disagreement on a particular function in a department.», Explained one of the participants in the meeting, the president of the CFTC Cyril Chabanier.
A new version of the health protocol will therefore be published by Thursday, including a “obligation to telework 3 days a week on average for positions that allow it, for three weeks, from January 3», As Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Monday. In addition, “companies that can do so are asked to go further and increase teleworking to 4 days a week when possible“.
In fact, the protocol in question is not really binding in a purely legal sense, since it is not enshrined in law. For the government, it is an emanation of the need to protect the health of employees, which is in the labor code and is binding on employers. But the protocol is, as the Council of State specifies in a decision of December 20, 2020, only a “set of recommendations“. “The government cannot make teleworking “ compulsory ” in a company without having a bill tabled in order to obtain a modification of the legal provisions», Thus indicates Michael Amado, lawyer at the bar of Paris.
Amount of fines to be specified
Nevertheless: without making the PNE compulsory, the inclusion in the law of administrative fines constitutes an additional signal for companies. If the company has not put in place measures deemed sufficient in the eyes of the Labor Inspectorate to protect the health of employees, it will therefore risk a financial penalty. This measure also meets the expectations of unions such as the CGT-TEFP, the first organization representing labor inspection officials, which has long called for a tightening of the legal framework concerning teleworking. The union denounces the weakness of the penalties incurred and the lack of staff to control companies.
For Alexandra Abadie, national secretary of the union, Élisabeth Borne’s announcement shows that “ministry realizes the insufficiency of current measures“. But the CGT-TEFP would have preferred that the inspectors could suspend the activity of a company in the event of breach of its obligations concerning teleworking, as they can do it for other risks.
According to Baptiste Talbot of the CGT, “at one point there was a reference to an amount of 2,000 euros per employee, for similarity with other types of infringement“. A ceiling of 500,000 euros per company could also be set, but these amounts still have to be arbitrated.
At the same time, the ministry says it wants to speed up labor inspection controls, with the goal of achieving 5,000 per month in the coming weeks. As a reminder, as of December 31, 2020, the labor inspectorate had 1,952 control officers, which also raises the question of the feasibility of such a device.
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Consultations to be made concerning aid
The CPME denounced in a press release this draft fine, seeing it as a “ineptitude, while companies are perfectly aware of the issues and have had exemplary conduct since the start of the pandemic“. “We are not at all adopters of this method“, Its president François Asselin told AFP. The deputy chairman of Medef Patrick Martin was more nuanced: “There will be no opposition in principle. What matters is that checks are not accompanied by disproportionate fines and that labor inspectors and regional labor directors show a sense of reality“, He indicated on RTL.
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A consultation is also “planned in the coming days with the Ministry of the Economy on the aids that could be put in place for activities subject to restrictions“. And, while “the priority remains on vaccination“, Élisabeth Borne affirmed that the government wanted”allow occupational physicians to have access to the list of unvaccinated persons in their area“.