SYNTEC collective agreements – Extension of the amendment concluded on April 1, 2014 on working hours

By order of June 26, 2014, it was extended to all companies covered by the collective agreement known as SYNTEC of December 15, 1987 (IDCC n° 1486], the amendment concluded on April 1, 2014, modifying article 4 of chapter 2 of the national agreement of June 22, 1999 on working time of the SYNTEC sector.

It should be noted that the provisions of the aforementioned article were invalidated by the French Supreme Court's ( Cour de cassation) ruling of April 24, 2013 (no. 11-28398 FS-PB), as they failed to ensure the protection of employees' health and safety with regard to working hours. Following this ruling, any individual fixed-rate agreement signed between an employer and an employee pursuant to this national agreement was considered null and void.

The social partners therefore negotiated new provisions taking into account the criteria that collective bargaining agreements must meet to be valid, as per the amendment of April 1, 2014. Article 4.2 is extended, subject to compliance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (Cass. soc., January 31, 2012, No. 10-17593), which specifies

that an individual agreement for a fixed number of days per year must set the number of days worked and specify the methods of calculating days or half-days worked and taking days or half-days of rest, and consequently that a simple reference by the employment contract to the provisions of the collective agreement or company agreement providing for the fixed number of days is insufficient.

The first paragraph of chapter 2 is extended, subject to the provision that, under the provisions of articleL. 3121-39 of the labor code, the agreement does not prevent the main characteristics of individual fixed-rate agreements from being set by a company or establishment agreement, provided that they guarantee the protection of the safety and health of employees, in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (Cass. soc, May 14, 2014, No. 12-35033).

This amendment was initially applicable only to companies affiliated with the signatory federations. It became applicable to all companies in the sector as of the date of publication of this decree, for the remaining term and under the conditions stipulated in the amendment. Consequently, individual fixed-rate agreements concluded between employees and their employers from this date onward, pursuant to the new provisions of the Syntec collective bargaining agreement, are now valid.