The French high court has recently invalidated the global working day clause (“forfait jours”) under the Syntec Collective Bargaining Agreement. The High court has been scrutinizing industry level agreements on global working days over the last few years and while some industry agreements have been confirmed, others have been invalidated, the latest being Syntec.
The high court ruled that the Syntec dispositions do not guarantee compliance to the principle of protection of the health and rest of the employees, as they do not guarantee that the volume and workload remain reasonable or allow an allocation of the workload over time.
This could present a risk for Syntec companies with regards to overtime payments. It is therefore necessary for companies applying Syntec to determine the strategy to adopt with regards to existing contracts and with regards to future hires.
Please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss the various options.
UPDATE:
The Syntec employer union has announced the opening of negotiations between employer and employee unions for the signature of an amendment to the existing working time agreement, which would secure the usage of “forfait jours” (global working day clause). As of yet there is no indication of when this amendment may be signed.
The negotiations will need to lead to measures designed to ensure reasonable amplitude of working days and workload and appropriate allocation of working time, thus ensuring a balance between the employees’ professional and private lives.
Very positive news for the industry that these negotiations have now been initiated but organizations who wish to maintain the usage of “forfeit jours “ will need to comply to the new constraints which will be contained in the amendment.