France: an agreement at Thales on long-term short-time working arrangements

A negotiated company agreement is required in order to deploy long-term partial short-time working arrangements and access a salary subsidy scheme that has been set up to support companies forced to scale back business for a long period of time as a way of coping with the health crisis (c.f. article No. 12083). On top of addressing certain legally required subjects, these agreements often settle additional issues raised by trade unions, which can range from improving the level of compensation for employees under these new working arrangements, to ensuring that this type of short-time working does not affect certain rights (leave periods, profit-sharing), and can include the requirement to schedule activities in advance so employees’ training programs and working |non-working times are more predictable and leaving employees better placed for skills development. On November 13 one such agreement was signed by the French high-tech group Thales, which has been hard hit by the sharp drop in air traffic.
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The agreement, signed by all of the company’s unions (CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, and CGT), guarantees the maintenance of 100% of net compensation for employees whose gross monthly salary is <€2,300, with 92% of net compensation guaranteed for the others (compared with the legally guaranteed 84%). In line with the legal provision, working hours can be reduced by up to 40%, with the possibility for up to a 50% cut under extraordinary circumstances, although for certain activities the agreement does res

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