Presentation of the main measures of the law likely to interest VSE SMEs with less than 50 employees.
Social newsletter no. 1
Law no. 2013-504 of June 14, 2013 on job security is the main labor law reform of 2013. Resulting from the national inter-professional agreement concluded between the social partners on January 11, 2013, it creates new obligations for employers.
Selection of measures likely to concern companies with fewer than 50 employees.
Job retention agreements
These agreements can be concluded at the level of the company when it encounters serious short-term difficulties.
The regime of these agreements is defined in Articles L 5125-1 to L 5125-7 of the Labor Code. The agreement is negotiated with:
– union delegates depending on representative organizations in the company having received more than 50% of the votes during the last elections of staff representatives
– or, failing this, by the elected staff representatives mandated by a representative trade union organization
– or, failing that, by an employee expressly mandated for this purpose by a representative trade union organization.
In these last two cases, the agreement must be approved by a majority of employees.
The agreement, which lasts maximum of two years, may provide for arrangements in terms of working time, organization of working time and compensation of employees. On this last point, the threshold is set at 1.2 minimum wage: the remuneration of employees whose salary is lower than this amount on the date of the agreement cannot be affected.
Partial activity
Article 16 of the law enshrines a single partial activity scheme instead of the various pre-existing partial unemployment schemes (Articles L 5122-1 et seq. of the Labor Code).
If the conditions for recourse to partial activity remain, the compensation of the employee is carried out by the employer on the basis of an hourly allowance whose hourly rate is fixed at €7.74 for companies with 1 to 250 employees. (Article D 5122-13 of the Labor Code).
The system entered into force with the publication of the decree specifying its terms of application (decree no. 2013-551 of June 26, 2013 relating to partial activity).
Complementary health and provident insurance
Employers must put in place within their company, by 1 January 2016 at the latest, a minimum additional guarantee providing for the reimbursement of health costs .
This guarantee must benefit all employees (Article 1 of the Law). The financing of this compulsory guarantee must be provided at least half by the employer (Article L 911-7 of the Social Security Code).
In the same way, must also be instituted within the company a compulsory additional cover in terms of providence .
This covers the risks of incapacity for work, invalidity and death. The implementation of this guarantee may be delayed compared to the medical expenses guarantee since the only obligation imposed by law is for the social partners to open negotiations at branch level on the subject before 1 January 2016 (Article 1 of the Act). Some alterations have also been made to the mechanism for portability of health and welfare guarantees for the benefit of the unemployed (Article 1 of the Law).
Part-time work
The law now sets a minimum duration of 24 hours per week in the event of part-time work (Articles L 3123-14-1 et seq. of the Labor Code).
Derogation possibilities exist, at the request of the employee or if a branch agreement provides for it. This new obligation comes into force on 1 January 2014. Part-time contracts taken out from this date must therefore
respect this minimum duration.
For current contracts, a transitional period until January 1, 2016 is organised. Compensation overtime is also changing.
Thus: – additional hours not exceeding 1/10th of the duration of work provided for in the contract will give rise to a 10% increase, as of January 1, 2014 (article L 3123-17 of the Labor Code);
– additional hours exceeding 1/10th of the contractual duration which are remunerated with a 25% increase, may give rise to a lower increase (without going below 10%) if a convention or an extended branch agreement provides for it ( article L 3123-19 of the Labor Code).
Other changes to the part-time work regime are open to collective bargaining.
Litigation
conciliation phase provided for before the industrial tribunal, the employer and the employee may henceforth agree to put an end to the dispute subject to the payment by the employer to the employee of a fixed indemnity , the amount of which is determined , without prejudice to legal, conventional or contractual indemnities, with reference to a scale fixed by decree according to the seniority of the employee (Article L 1235-1 of the Labor Code).
This scale was set by decree no. 2013-721 of August 2, 2013 (see Information no. 4 below). The employment security law reduces from 5 to 2 years the limitation legal actions relating to the performance or termination of the employment contract.
This period runs from the day on which the person exercising it knew or should have known the facts allowing him to exercise his right (Article L 1471-1 of the Labor Code). As an exception, this period does not apply to actions for payment of wages, compensation for bodily injury caused during the performance of work or based on discrimination or acts of sexual or moral harassment.
Similarly, the limitation period for wages is reduced from 5 to 3 years.
The action for payment or recovery of wages is prescribed by three years from the day on which the person exercising it knew or should have known the facts allowing him to exercise it. The request may relate to amounts due for the last three years from today or, when the employment contract is terminated, to amounts due for the three years preceding the termination of the contract (Article L 3245-1 of the Labor Code). These new deadlines are applicable to prescriptions in progress on June 17, 2013, without however the total duration of prescription being able to exceed the old deadline.
