France - Labour code reform: central role for company-level agreements - December 31, 2015

The labour ministry has launched a reform of the labour law. The two main objectives are to revise the entire labour code and to give company-level agreements a central role. Proposed is a labour code with a new architecture resting on three tiers and focusing on collective bargaining at branch or company level. The first tier would guarantee fundamental principles such as the minimum wage and working hours (the famous 35 hours) – peremptory norms from which employers would not be able to depart. A committee has formulated the fundamental principles that will serve as the basis for the bill to be presented in January 2016. The second tier would be comprised of the areas open to negotiation, at branch or company level. And the third tier would cover the provisions applicable where there is no branch or company-level agreement between employers and unions, in other words, the supplementary provisions. Trade unions and employers agree that the labour code is overly complex, although not for the same reasons. The main disagreement lies on the balance between the peremptory norms that apply across the board to all workers and the supplementary provisions that would only apply in the absence of branch or company-level agreements.

English: http://www.equaltimes.org/french-labour-code-reform …  

For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.

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