The French Supreme Court asked the ECJ about the compliance with Community law of information and consultation in the French Labor Code (Article L. 1111-3), which excluded from a company’s staffing numbers (and therefore has an impact on limits for the introduction of employee representative structures) apprentices and workers with an integration contract (employment support contract, employment-initiative contract or work-study contracts). In the conclusions rendered on July 18, Advocate General Cruz Villalón suggests that the Court should declare that it is contrary to EU law. This is in line with Community case law. But, surprisingly, the conclusions suggest that the Court should declare that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU is directly opposable, under some conditions, in a national dispute between individuals or businesses. If the ECJ did that, it would retrospectively cancel the efforts made by the governments that accepted to ratify this Charter – which has now become the header of the EU Treaty – to the “neutral” legal significance of this tool. (Ref. 130493)
Within the framework of a procedure on the cancelation of a union-appointed representative, requested by an employer on the grounds that he was under this obligation to set up an employee representation structure (there were 8 permanent employees but about 100 with employment support contract), the regional court ruled that the French Labor Code Article in question was contrary to Community law and, more precisely, to Directive 2002/14 (which establishes a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community).
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