The communist mayors of the five cities assigned by the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis requested Wednesday January 19 a deadline for the application of the law on 35 hours for their municipal agents, in force since January 1 for the communes.
Read alsoThese cities that are still reluctant to apply the 35 hours for their municipal agents
The administrative court of Montreuil held a hearing on Wednesday afternoon on the interim suspension of the prefect Jacques Witkowski addressed to the cities of Bobigny, Stains, Montreuil, Noisy-le-Sec and Tremblay-en-France for their lack of deliberation on the work time. “
Give us time to negotiate with the trade unions, with our staff
”, pleaded Olivier Sarrabeyrouse, the mayor of Noisy-le-Sec, during a press conference with three of his peers in court before the start. of the hearing. "
There is more urgent than sticking fines to us in these times of health crisis
", added the elected representative of Montreuil Patrice Bessac, who castigated an "
illegitimate
" measure. But "
the law is the law
“, he however recognized, and will therefore have to be applied in the long term.
Passed in 2019, the civil service transformation law imposes the application of 35 hours to all civil servants, i.e. 1607 hours of effective work per year.
This provision implies the abolition of derogatory regimes, more favorable on working time, in place in certain administrations.
In Bobigny, agents work an average of 1,544 hours per year, or 63 hours less than the legal obligation.
For Stains, this duration is 1565 hours, and 1552 hours in Montreuil.
"
The agents who live in our working-class neighborhoods can no longer support the austerity policies of the Macron government
", justified Azzedine Taïbi, mayor of Stains.
The prefect's summary suspension is accompanied by an injunction to comply with the regulations on the duration of working hours, otherwise the cities risk a "
monthly fine in the amount of 1000 euros per municipal agent
", according to the documents of which AFP has become aware. For a local authority like Montreuil, which has 2,000 agents, this would represent a penalty of nearly two million euros per month, which would strain municipal finances. If the communist cities expected a summons from the prefect, "
we did not expect a fine as big as that
", conceded the mayor of Bobigny Abdel Sadi. The Montreuil administrative court will make its decision next week.