The CFDT had warned on the eve of the start of the deconfinement. If the employers dragged their feet to start negotiations on the supervision of telework, it would make proposals this week. It is now done. The central, majority in the private sector, found for the occasion its reformist counterparts from Unsa and the CFTC. The joint press release published this Thursday, May 14 aims to learn from the eight weeks of homework, sudden and forced.
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Since mid-March, 5 million employees have switched to teleworking. And, as for a large part of them, this organization will remain a daily reality until September, the unions believe that it is urgent to better supervise it to mitigate the consequences of the lack of preparation. "The unanticipated telework experience currently experienced must be the subject of a collective formalization to establish some essential principles, identify the difficulties, identify common benchmarks, allow feedback ," say the three unions. The assessment of this period should, according to them, lead to the “ establishment of a relevant agreement (…) both in“ ordinary ”period and in“ degraded ”period.
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The importance of social dialogue
The CFDT, Unsa and the CFTC recall beforehand that " telework must be the subject of social dialogue " to " ensure a common foundation of benchmarks and guarantees between employers and employees ". The establishment of telework must therefore be at least the subject of a charter, or " better still an agreement ", even if the latter is no longer mandatory since the reform of the Labor Code of 2017.
A reflection on the organization
For this, the central offices want negotiations that are part of a global reflection on the organization of work in the company. Clearly, employees cannot be 100% teleworked, the methods of recourse (occasional, organized, ad hoc needs) must be defined and the relationships between remote employees and those present on the site must be considered. " The alternation between teleworking and face-to-face work must be favored, in particular to avoid the phenomenon of isolation of the teleworker and the associated professional risks such as psychosocial risks ", insist the unions.
An extended list of eligible tasks
Many trades hitherto excluded from teleworking have finally proved compatible with this organization in recent weeks. The three centers believe that it will now be necessary for any position "to integrate the possibility that certain activities and / or tasks are achievable in telework ".
Volunteering still imperative
The press release specifies that " despite the relaxation of the last order ", teleworking is neither a right nor an obligation, and must therefore be "of a doubly voluntary nature ". The only exception to the principle of volunteering for both the employer and the employee must be the existence of exceptional circumstances such as the threat of an epidemic, or cases of force majeure.
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Fixed material conditions
The CFDT, Unsa and the CFTC specify that it should not be imperative that teleworking takes place at the worker's home and that co-working spaces, see another site of the company, are also a solution . Recalling that the employee's personal equipment cannot be a condition for their eligibility for telework, the unions stress that " the employer must provide teleworkers with the tools (hardware, software, secure access to the company's databases / administration…) and information on the limits and rules inherent in their use ”. Their press release also highlights the central role of training, both for employees (management of schedules, priorities, etc.) and managers (control and regulation of workload, respect for the right to disconnect, maintenance of the cohesion of the team…). Finally, the three centers invite us to be particularly vigilant regarding the situation of disabled workers.
No one knows if a proper interprofessional negotiation will open on the subject. The employers, long reluctant to this idea, finally accepted the opening of a discussion to try to reach "a shared diagnosis". The exchanges should begin by the end of the month and Medef hopes to reach a summary document in two or three sessions.