It is frequent, in the French public debate, to explain the high unemployment rate by the rigidities of a labor law that is too extensive and far too picky. Part of the lack of flexibility of the national labor market would therefore be attributable to an excessively bulky Code whose knowledge and mastery are almost impossible, while no one is however supposed to ignore the law.
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Unemployment
Unemployment is the fact, for a person over 15 years of age, of not having a job, actively looking for one and being available for work. The unemployed are included in the labor force.
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Established by the law of December 28, 1910, the Labor Code clearly delineates the rights and duties of employers and employees. It covers all issues related to the employment contract, collective relations, hygiene, safety and health at work, the fight against discrimination, conflict management, staff representation bodies, employment and vocational training.
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Established by the law of December 28, 1910, the Labor Code clearly delineates the rights and duties of employers and employees. It covers all issues related to the employment contract, collective relations, hygiene, safety and health at work, the fight against discrimination, conflict management, staff representation bodies, employment and vocational training.
To read Work mostly kills workers
Today it comprises two main parts, a legislative part which sets the general conditions and a regulatory part, which defines their concrete application. The legislator’s objective was to bring together in a single volume all that concerns labor law.
Late XVIIIe, first progress
Since the pioneering law of 1841, which regulated child labor, labor law has been enriched with numerous provisions. Before this law, there was virtually no labor law. The major texts fixing the obligations of employers and salaried workers were contained in the Civil Code established by the law of 30 Ventôse year XII.
It was stipulated there that one could engage his services “only on time or for a specific enterprise” (art. 1780) and that the “master” was taken at his word for all that concerned the payment of wages and salaries. down payments. The other fundamental texts regulating work dated from the beginning of the revolutionary period.
To read “We are not at parts! »Or when the work was paid by the task
These are the Allarde decree (March 2 and 17, 1791) and the Le Chapelier law (June 7, 1791) which completely liberalized the labor market by only authorizing individual relations between the boss and the workers, by de facto prohibiting any form of collective expression such as corporations and unions and by prohibiting strikes.
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Unions
It is an association whose aim is the representation and defense of professional and economic interests. There are employee unions (CFDT, CGT, ..) and employers’ unions (Medfef, FNSEA, etc.).
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Labor law was therefore individual and asymmetrical since, before the law and the courts, the voice of the employer prevailed: in the event of a dispute, it was up to the employee to provide proof of what he was putting forward.
Driven by the awareness of the very harsh conditions for workers and especially children, the legislation began to evolve in the middle of the 19th century.e century with some far-reaching laws such as that of 1864 authorizing strike action (Ollivier law) or that of 1884 legalizing unions (Waldeck-Rousseau law).
Its enrichment (creation of the body of labor inspectors, laws on hygiene and safety in factories, law on industrial accidents, etc.) prompted the legislator to codify, that is to say to meet in a the only work in all the texts relating to labor law.
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Work accident
An accident arising out of or in the course of work, whatever the cause, is considered an accident at work.
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Social security, works council and right of withdrawal
It was after the First World War that the process that led to the current code really began. A few major milestones have marked this century of evolution which began in 1919 with the law of eight hours. In 1936, the Matignon agreements established 40 hours, the first two weeks of paid leave and collective agreements.
To read The reduction in working time (RTT), an old story
At the Liberation, the application of the economic and social program of the National Council of the Resistance creates the works councils (CE) set up the social security and the employment contract of indefinite duration. In 1946, the right to work was enshrined in the preamble to the constitution (incorporated in full by that of the 1958 constitution establishing the Fifth Republic).
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Social Security
Set of public bodies and social protection systems which insure the insured against social risks (illness, old age, unemployment, etc.). The benefits received are contributory (social benefits are paid from the contributions paid by the social insured).
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Then, in 1968, came the Grenelle agreements and, in 1981, the major social laws which followed the victory of the left in 1981: the Auroux laws of 1982 very profoundly modified life in companies by strengthening the right of expression. of employees, the prerogatives of works councils, by making annual negotiations on wages compulsory, by institutionalizing the health and safety and working conditions committees (CHSCT) in all companies with more than 50 employees and by establishing the right of withdrawal in the event of danger.
3,600 pages and over 10,000 articles
This inflation of rights has led to a Labor Code of more than 3,600 pages and 10,600 articles, which seems gigantic compared to its foreign counterparts, in particular the Swiss Labor Code (200 pages and a hundred articles).
However, since the beginning of the XXIe century, the official trend of public policies is the search for flexibility: to relax employment contracts, hiring and dismissal conditions, review the conditions of unemployment compensation.
The Pénicaud law of 2018 proposed a fairly profound overhaul of the Labor Code by modifying the provisions relating to redundancy indemnities (capping of industrial tribunal indemnities) as well as the framework for collective negotiations in SMEs or competitiveness agreements, offering the possibility of simplifying the Labor Code.
If the employers’ organizations, in particular the Medef, see pragmatic measures in it, the employee unions consider that it is a step back from the right to work. Events which accompanied the Labor Law of 2016 (El Khomri law) suggest that the Labor Code will be difficult to simplify.
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