On June 14, 2013, a law called “sécurisation de l’emploi » (securing employment) has been ratified by both French chambers. It features important new aspects of Labor practices related to labor disputes and in particular when Labor court (“Conseil de Prud’hommes”) is seized to settle such disputes.
The 3 key pillars are:
The Compensation Scale
In order to favor conciliation before the case reaches the judgment office, article #21 of the law introduces the principle of an agreement proposal between the parties in form of a financial compensation. The amount of such compensation is automatically determined by a scale which takes the seniority of the employee in the company as one and only criteria.
| Seniority (Years) | Compensation (# Months’ Salary) |
| 0 – 2 | 2 |
| 2 – 8 | 4 |
| 8 – 15 | 8 |
| 15 – 25 | 10 |
| 25 + | 14 |
In case of agreement, the dispute is terminated. Please note that some particular cases are excluded from this disposition: collective agreements (pertaining to a specific profession or domain), cases of harassment, discrimination or inability.
Internal mobility: collectively negotiated, compulsory individually.
Article #15 of the law specifies that internal mobility agreements (change of work location or position for example) are negotiated including acceptable limitations. These agreements can be renegotiated every 3 years. Internal mobility cannot include any salary or categorization decrease.
But, if the employee refuses (the internal mobility), this will lead to the rupture of his/her working contract and will be laid off for economic reasons. In this case, supporting measures must have been determined.
Secured & Voluntary External Mobility.
Article #6 provides that, for companies above 300 staff and at least 2-years seniority, external mobility is possible in order to develop one’s competences for example, or if the employee estimates that his/her company does not offer any career development perspective, as another example.
This mobility requires to sign a working contract addendum with effect, return dates etc. Upon his/her return, the employee recovers his/her post, or equivalent, with the same financial package and classification. If he/she does not return, his/her work contract is de facto broken and the employee deemed as resigning, therefore without any compensation.
Now this law has at least10 impacts on labor disputes:
- Is accepting the seniority compensation scale going against your interests?
- All of your real damages will never be taken into account by this scale.
- If you have a big seniority (and so firing you will be costly), beware of being sidelined!
- If you have less than 2 years seniority, this scale increases the risk to be laid off.
- Conciliation: like an unmotivated firing?
- Will your employer be able to change your position without your consent?
- Will your employer be able to ask you to move to the other side of the earth and you won’t be able to refuse?
- Will your employer be able to influence you to take another position in another company (without firing you)?
- Will your employer be able to loan you to another friendly company (a subsidiary for example)?
- Impulsive external mobility? Beware to collateral professional damages!
Coaching
Let’s overlook the first 2 of these aspects in the context of this article.
Is accepting the seniority compensation scale going against your interests?
This scale allows companies to budget their individual layoff projects. Although a legitimate thought for the company, will this protect your interests as an employee?
Most often, no, particularly for the managers or executives for whom the compensation will be insufficient by far, and also in view of the damaging consequences of their layoff (damages to their image especially in “narrow” industry domains where everybody knows everybody, damages to their career perspectives or even moral damage).
Also, a 15-years seniority manager or executive will find a new job much more easily than a 2-years seniority employee as the latter will get a lot less compensation per the conciliation scale (2-months’ salary compensation vs 10 months).
Moreover, at the conciliation office phase, you will be gone from the company for quite some time therefore you’ll be quite far away from your previous management’s daily worries and it is likely that they will be less receptive to taking your damages into account.
All of your real damages will never be taken into account by this scale.
As already stated, this conciliation scale only works with seniority and therefore does not take the following into account:
- If your firing causes damage to your image on the market where you are known;
- If your firing has been brutal (at least for you);
- If you will be confronted with a large revenue decrease;
- If it creates a rupture into your career path leaving you, for example, only hoping for an equivalent position in another company instead of rising where you are;
- This departure might even result from harassment or a burnout.
Nothing of all this will be taken into account by the scale!
Conclusion
In most cases, given the weakness of this scale, it will be much more preferable to look for a decent solution (in terms of severance package) before leaving the company and negotiate a transaction above the legal. If this does not conclude happily, then it will be time to go to labor court up to the judgement office of the court so that your damages are compensated to your satisfaction.
To know more on the topic of defining your departure negotiation strategy with a coach specialized in departure negotiation please use the enclosed contact form.