Up to 12 days a year for sick children against 5 days in the private sector, public officials benefit from absence permits for family reasons on average much more important than their colleges who work in the private sector. To harmonize the conditions of these absences, the government is currently working on a decree aiming to harmonize the special absences of absence (ASA) of public officials for family events including guards for sick children.
Read also: Stop the use of special leave of absence in the public service from May 11
The ASA is a specific feature of the public service that the general public discovered during confinement: placed in ASA (and not on partial unemployment), a public official does not work but remains paid at 100% and continues to accumulate paid holidays (but not RTT) and advancement. Days in ASA are considered actual work. During the health crisis, between 30 and 40% of state and community agents were placed under this regime: they are non-"essential" agents (and therefore who were not forced to come to work physically) and for whom telework was considered "impossible" or agents who had to look after their children.
Gains and losses
Before the health crisis, ASAs already existed: they were in particular granted according to the policy of each public employer for childcare, deaths and / or marriages. The territorial public service has traditionally been more generous in granting them, and civil servants currently have more days of care for sick children than the private sector. Until now, agents had 6 days of ASA per year for the care of sick children and up to 12 days if they were "single parents".
However, the current project of the government aims to operate a reconciliation with the rules of the private sector and to harmonize the use of ASA, outside a period of health crisis, in the three public functions in particular by fixing a number of days granted by "family event". Henceforth, alignment with the private sector will reduce absenteeism authorizations for sick children to 3 days of care for sick children under 16 and up to 5 days if the child is less than one year old or if the agent has, in his care, more than 3 children under 16 years of age which brings the ASA closer to the most protective branch devices.
At the level of ASAs granted "by law", these ceilings will now be fixed: 2 days of ASA will be granted to agents of the three public services when the disability of a child is announced, 5 days for their own marriage (or PACS) , 3 days for the death of a spouse, parent, brother or sister and 7 days for the death of a child under 25 years of age. Absences related to compulsory medical appointments for pregnancy will also be covered by ASAs, for the agents monitored but also for spouses for 3 of the 7 compulsory appointments which will also be covered.
Opposite, ASAs granted "subject to the continuity of public service" may be requested, in particular absences for "preparation for childbirth" meetings for spouses or a day of ASA for the marriage of a child.
A good start but what about the rules of the ASA apart from family events?
The alignment between the rules of the private and those of the public, on absences for family events, is a very good thing ... but we could have gone further because we saw it with the health crisis, there is no as family events that lead to placing agents in ASA.
The confinement highlighted the inequalities of treatment between a public service authorized (to more than 50% in certain local communities), in part, not to work while remaining paid 100% and of the private employees, in partial unemployment with 84% of their salary, the approximation of the rules must go further with harmonization between the ASA and partial unemployment. Harmonizing with the private sector would have meant doing away with maintaining remuneration at 100% premiums included (except for remuneration up to 1.13 times the minimum wage).
The solution is simple: any agent in ASA should no longer collect bonuses on days not worked. Another effort to harmonize.
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