A pay slip of around fifteen lines and no longer 55 to see things more clearly: the government promise, made by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, did not convince the upper house. The government suffered a setback in the Senate on Tuesday June 4 on one of the emblematic measures of its economic simplification bill: the establishment of a shortened pay slip for greater clarity for employees.
“This simplification of the bulletin is neither requested nor desired by any employer or union organization”pointed out environmentalist senator Raymonde Poncet-Monge, denouncing “an ideological objective” who go “opaque pay”. The senatorial majority, an alliance of the right and the center, believes that this reform will increase the work of companies.
Indeed, bosses will have to, for a time, keep the detailed data in an annex file available to employees, which could force them to “double work”even if the government assures that this responsibility will be entrusted to the national social rights portal by 2027.
Even if most of this development is regulatory and will involve consultation with social partners, the government needed to modify the law to review certain methods of transmitting data to employees.
The Minister for Business Olivia Grégoire tried, without success, to defend the measure. “French employees have a lot of trouble understanding their pay slips”she pleaded, regretting that the Senate was opposed to “the only measure (in the bill) which provides simplification for employees”.
Technical measures
Examined since Monday at first reading, the bill to simplify economic life proposes multiple measures, most of them extremely technical, to “make life easier for businesses”. The government also failed on Tuesday to have the Senate adopt another key provision of this bill, aimed at unifying public procurement litigation, for the benefit of the administrative judge.
The senators also clashed over one of the rare divisive measures in the text: the legal deadline imposed on small business owners to warn their employees of an upcoming sale of their business. Currently set at two months, the government wishes to reduce it to one month because it considers that the current situation can “compromise the sale” And “dissuade potential buyers”.
The Senate simply removed this obligation, despite criticism from the left who defended this transparency mechanism vis-à-vis employees, potentially interested in taking over the company.