Brief Description of Employees’ and Employers’ Associations
The French trade union movement is one of the weakest in Europe in terms of headcount. Only 10% of employees are members of a trade union.
Since a Law dated 20 August 2008, all the trade unions (at the company, at the branch and at the national levels) have to demonstrate their representativeness by complying with new criteria. In particular, a minimum percentage of votes at the last professional elections (10% at the company’s level, 8% at the branch and national levels).
Currently, the representative trade unions at national and interbranch level are the CGT, CFDT, CGT-FO, CFTC and the CFE-CGC (i.e. the trade union dedicated to managers and executives).
The largest employers’ federations in France are the MEDEF (“Movement of the French Companies”), which totals 190,000 member firms in 2022 (including 70% of VSEs and SMEs and involving more than 10 million employees) and the CPME (“French small and medium sized employers’ organisation”), which represents the interests of 243,397 in 2021SMEs, registered in France.
Rights and Importance of Trade Unions
The exclusive purpose of a trade union is to protect the professional interests of its members.
The most important prerogative of trade unions is the role they have in negotiating and concluding collective agreements with the employers’ organisations. It used to be a monopoly, but the Macron reform introduced other ways to negotiate collective agreements.
This exclusive right explains the paradox of the French industrial relations system: a low unionisation rate around 10% and a very high rate of collective bargaining coverage, close to 62% of employees due to the extension’s mechanism of collective agreements and compulsory negotiations.
Types of Representation
French employment law provides that, in companies with at least 50 employees, trade unions, which are representative within the company, may appoint union representatives (“délégués syndicaux”) among the employees of the company in order to represent them before the head of the company or establishment.
In companies with less than 50 employees, a member of the staff delegation to the Works Council may be appointed, for the duration of his mandate, to simultaneously fulfil the role of union delegate.
A trade union may also be represented, within a company, by a union section (“section syndicale”), which gathers the members of the same trade union and represents its material and moral interests at a company level. In particular, the union section is entitled to collect, on the company’s premises, the financial contributions made by the employees to the union and distribute its publications and leaflets on the company’s premises at the beginning or end of working hours.
a. Number of Representatives
The number of union representatives a trade union can appoint within the same company is based on the number of company’s employees. The French Labor Code provides that the number of union representatives a trade union can appoint varies from 1, for a company with a number of employees between 50 and 999, to 5, for a company with at least 9,999 employees. A collective agreement regularly concluded between the representative trade unions in the company and the employer can modify these terms and conditions.
b. Appointment of Representatives
In order to be appointed as union representative, an employee must be at least 18 years old, must be employed by the company for, in principle, at least one year, and must be in full possession of his civil rights.
The French Labor Code requires the union representative to be appointed among the candidates in the last professional elections who obtained a minimum of 10% of the votes in the first round.
The trade union must notify the employer of the appointment, by registered letter with return receipt requested or hand-delivered letter against a signed release. A copy of the letter must also be sent by the trade union to the Labor Inspector, and the appointment must be posted on the trade union notice boards.
The employer cannot interfere in the designation of a union representative, but may challenge it before the Judicial Court (“Tribunal Judiciaire”), within a maximum period of 15 days following the date of reception of the appointment letter sent by the trade union.
Tasks and Obligations of Representatives
The union representative represents its trade union vis-à-vis the employer, and may present claims to the employer in view of improving the employees’ working conditions (e.g., salary increases, additional days of vacation, time-off, etc.).
To perform their duties, union representatives are authorised to circulate freely within the company’s premises. They also benefit from paid time-off to perform their mission as employee representatives (12 hours per month in companies employing from 50 to 150 employees, 18 hours in companies employing from 151 to 499 employees, and 24 hours in companies employing more than 500 employees), which are granted in addition to the union section’s time-off hours and which can be exceeded in exceptional circumstances (such as a strike).
The most important prerogative of trade union representatives is the monopoly they have in negotiating and concluding in-house collective agreements with the employer. In principle, an in-house collective agreement cannot be validly concluded without being signed by union representatives, even where the majority of the company’s employees favour such an agreement.
Employees' Representation in Management
In principle, managers and executives have the opportunity to join the trade union of their choice.
However, the CFE-CGC (The French Confederation of Management and the General Confederation of Executives), which is one of the five major French trade union confederations, gathers 170,000 members and organises unions specifically for professional employees in management or executive positions. If need be, the CFE-CGC is considered as representative only for executive employees and managers. Consequently, the CFE-CGC is entitled to negotiate a collective agreement that covers all categories of staff but cannot sign it on its own.
Employee Representative Bodies
CSE
Since 1 January 2020, all companies with at least 11 employees have to put in place a CSE. The Macron Reform has significantly simplified staff representation in companies by merging the former three staff representative bodies into one. The Works Council, Workers’ Delegates, and Health and Safety Committee are now combined into the Social and Economic Committee: the CSE. It will also be possible, subject to the existence of a collective agreement, instead of a CSE, to implement a conseil d’entreprise. This body would basically have the same prerogatives as the CSE, but would, in addition, be able to enter into and revise collective agreements, instead of trade union delegates, which would no longer exist.
Timeframe
The minimum threshold for mandatory implementation is when the company employs at least 11 employees for 12 consecutive months. In principle, the CSE is set up at the end of the current mandate of the elected staff representatives.
The body has the same configuration, regardless of the size of the company. It must include a health, safety and working conditions commission in companies and separate establishments that have at least 300 employees.
The number of seats to the CSE vary in proportion to the staff headcount. It ranges from 1 representative for companies with 11 employees to 35 representatives for companies with over 10,000 employees.
