Derichebourg Aeronautics Services (1,600 employees), one of the major subcontractors for Airbus in Toulouse, the newspaper L'Équipe (335 employees) and the airline Ryanair. These three companies have announced in recent days that they intend to use the same legislative tool: the collective performance agreement instituted by the so-called "Macron" work orders in 2017. Clearly, it allows the employer to maintain the low-cost employment during an economic crisis.
The collective performance agreement offers the employer the possibility, in the event of an economic crisis, of asking employees to make efforts (lower wages, increased working hours, elimination of RTT, etc.) while the latter s '' undertakes to maintain employment, generally for a period of 5 years.
"Efforts to save the company"
“It is an alternative legal device at the social enterprise level (PSE) which allows employees to be asked to make efforts to save the company. In return, the management spares them a social plan and collective redundancies, ”decrypts Farida El Khantouche, consultant at the Ayming consulting firm. This is like saying: do you want to keep your job? And make concessions! . It is a tool that is likely to multiply in the coming months in companies of all sizes given the looming crisis, "she warns.
A collective performance agreement can only be put in place with the agreement of the majority unions (which represent more than 50% of employees). “Either the unions sign, the agreement is ratified and employment is preserved. If no agreement is found, the management can implement a corporate social plan (PSE) to separate from a part of the employees, clarifies Caroline Heubès, lawyer specializing in social law at MIS lawyers. In fact, it is then a dismissal for economic reasons which is activated and which gives entitlement to certain advantages such as severance pay, twelve months' reclassification leave, etc. ”, she continues.
The employee cannot refuse the new working conditions
If a collective performance agreement has been signed by the majority unions, does an employee have the personal right to refuse his new working conditions? No, and "the employer can then dismiss him for refusing to apply the agreement," says Caroline Heubès. Note that it will be a dismissal for personal reason, which is less advantageous than the dismissal for economic reason.
Established as part of the 2017 work orders, the collective performance agreement appeared, in another form, in 1998 in the Aubry law on the reduction of working time. At the time already, in return for donations from RTT, employees had the possibility of preserving their jobs.