15.3%: this is the share of employees who suffered at least one work accident in 2019, in the workforce of “order-taking” companies, whose subcontracting represents more than half of the turnover, indicates the “Working conditions and psychosocial risks” survey of the Ministry of Labor.
This proportion just exceeds 10% among all French employees. Based on available data and work published over the past ten years, economists Corinne Perraudin and Nadine Thévenot highlight the hardship experienced by subcontracting workers, working in already difficult sectors (industry, construction, transport). …).
The researchers develop their main results in a contribution to the scientific mediation project “What do we know about work? ” of Interdisciplinary laboratory for public policy evaluation (Liepp), broadcast in collaboration with Presses de Sciences Po on the site’s Employment channel Lemonde.fr.
Unfortunately, these difficult working conditions and the resulting risks are rarely assumed by the ordering companies: this is precisely due to the definition of subcontracting, which establishes a link of economic dependence between the companies, but without liability. of the job itself, and without long-term commitment.
An ordering company simply entrusts another, the order taker, with the task of carrying out part of the production tasks. It is jointly responsible for the risks suffered by the subcontractor’s employees only if they work on a site that belongs to it. Since 2017, multinational companies have had a duty of vigilance regarding the risks suffered by workers throughout their production chain, in their subsidiaries in France and around the world, but for all companies, this obligation of vigilance boils down to the fight against hidden work.
Strengthening corporate responsibility
In 2019, 28% of establishments are subcontractors (and 7% are for more than half of their activity). Some subcontractors are themselves principals. Subcontracting is not an employment status strictly speaking, since the workers are employees like any other. It emerges from the authors’ work that these employees are less well paid than the employees of the principals, with equal qualifications, and that they carry out more professions “execution”. Thus, they are more often exposed to night work, handling heavy loads or even noise.
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