France : the government presents its set of labor law reform ordinances

On 31 August, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe together with the labor Minister, Muriel Pénicaud present five ordinances under the enabling legislative framework adopted on 02 August. This law authorizes the government to accelerate reform of the country’s labor law by operating outside the regular legislative process. The ordinances address in particular labor tribunal compensation ceilings for cases of unfair dismissal, the geographic scope within which employment termination for economic cause is recognized, the introduction of the project based employment contract, the role of collective bargaining and the merging of employee representation bodies as well as negotiation in SMEs.

Interaction between the various negotiation levels. The goal is to accord company level negotiation a greater role whilst conserving the sector level’s regulatory role. The law currently allows companies to derogate from sector agreements except in areas where the sector agreement takes primacy and on issues where companies are explicitly prohibited from derogating. In maintaining this rationale of divided authority, whilst still moving inexorably towards decentralization, the ordinance that focuses on ‘strengthening collective negotiation’ boosts the decentralization and autonomy aspects of company negotiation in officially recognizing that in principle the company takes primacy with the following exceptions:

Over issues where the sector agreement retains peremptory primacy including especially on minimum salary levels, job classification, some measures on working time duration periods, classification of night-time work, overtime rates,…

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