France violates the European Social Charter by applying excessive salary deductions to certain striking civil servants, considered, in a decision made public on Tuesday 14 February, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR). The body, attached to the Council of Europe and responsible for examining compliance with this treaty ratified by France, had been seized by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), on the so-called rule of “undivided thirtieth” to which State civil servants are subject.
They are in fact deprived of one-thirtieth of their pay per day of strike, even if they only go on strike for an hour or half a day (unlike, in particular, the private sector in which the deduction from wages is proportional to the duration of the work stoppage). The CEDS sided with the CGT in considering that this rule “constituted, in its effect, a restriction of a fundamental right”namely the right to strike.
The device “results in a disproportionate deduction from the wages of strikers and is punitive in nature”, conclude the European jurists. The ECSR also notes the lack of “objective and reasonable justification” to the difference in treatment between the 2.5 million agents of the State civil service and those of the territorial (2 million agents) and hospital (1.2 million) sides, which are not subject to the indivisible thirtieth rule.
No binding effect
However, this decision by the CEDS has no force “enforceable” in national law. In a communicatedthe CGT estimated that there was “urgency that the public employer and the internal courts apply the recommendations of the CEDS, a committee involved in the effectiveness and protection of the social rights of workers”.
It is, however, a “great victory (…) in this period of social mobilization”, believes the CGT. Since January, the unions have presented a united front against the pension reform proposed by the government, which plans to gradually raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 and to accelerate the extension of the contribution period required to receive a full pension.