Ln September 26, 2022, the decision was made. The European Committee of Social Rights (CEDS) of the Council of Europe agrees with the CGT and Force Ouvrière (FO) unions and pinpoints the industrial tribunal scales, known as “Macron scales”. By capping unfair dismissal compensation, these scales do not respect the “right to adequate compensation” of the European Social Charter, judged the body. Pretending to give visibility to companies, the device has above all made it possible to institutionalize dismissal without real and serious reason by giving it a low price.
The effects have been measured: a loss of 1.3 months of salary on average for employees dismissed without cause between 2017 and 2022, and in particular of 3.1 months on average for employees with seniority between two and five years, according to an academic study published in the journal Social right. But these new scales have mainly reinforced the idea that employers can abusively dismiss their employees without consequences.
“Introduce the famous French-style flexicurity without wasting time”, it was however the objective of Muriel Pénicaud (former Minister of Labour) to justify the order which contained the industrial tribunal scale. If flexibility was at the rendezvous of each labor reform under the Macron era – causing an unprecedented development of precariousness – security for employees has always been absent.
Restoring the indicative character of industrial tribunal scales
The reform of parametric unemployment insurance, the main objective of which was to achieve 3.9 billion euros in savings on the allowances of intermittent workers in a total absence of employment planning for the professions of the future, like the ecological transition, is a new example. Ultimately, true French-style flexicurity… The decision of the European Committee of Social Rights is a game-changer. Its binding nature is debated between the Constitutional Council and the Council of State, but it is above all a political issue for Emmanuel Macron “the European”.
After announcing with great fanfare the consolidation of European values during the French presidency of the European Union; after having rightly attacked the illiberal attacks of the Polish and Hungarian governments against social achievements such as the right to abortion, can he decently wipe his feet on the European Social Charter?
Would there be two weights, two measures, a Charter of Fundamental Rights which he announced that he wanted to strengthen by integrating climate issues and the right to abortion on the one hand, and on the other, a European Social Charter and European workers’ rights that would stop where employers’ interests begin? The “disobedience” to European treaties and charters seems ultimately acceptable, when it comes to labor law and the protection of employees… I will propose to the government to restore the indicative nature of labor court scales. We will then know very quickly if the President of the Republic is capable of overcoming this contradiction.
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