Labor & Employment

More than a year after the Take Eat Easy decision in which the Labor Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) had for the first time ruled on the legal classification of the contract between a deliverer and a digital platform and recognized the existence of an employment contract, it recently took position once again on the issue of platform workers, this time in a case concerning the very famous company Uber.

The Labor Chamber reiterated its position in a decision dated March 4, 2020 and upheld the ruling of the Paris Court of Appeals of January 10, 2019: the contract between Uber and its 28,000 drivers in France is to be analyzed as an employment contract!

Three Ordinances on labor and employment matters adopted in furtherance of the emergency health law to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic were published in the Official Gazette on Thursday March 26, 2020.

These Ordinances concern (i) derogations, subject to certain conditions, regarding paid vacation, working hours, rest days and work on Sundays, applicable until December 31, 2020, (ii) extension of the deadline for payments under mandatory and optional profit-sharing schemes to December 31, 2020, and (iii) extension of the scope of employees eligible for the supplemental allowance paid by the employer in the event of medical leave until August 31, 2020.

In the context of the coronavirus health crisis, an emergency health law to deal with the covid-19 pandemic (the “Law”) was definitively voted on Sunday March 22, 2020 and published in the Official Gazette on March 24, 2020.

The Law empowers the Government to amend, by means of Ordinances and within 3 months from its publication, any measures in order to deal with the economic, financial and labor-related consequences of the spread of the pandemic, in particular with regard to labor law and social security.

The Law indeed includes a whole set of measures that are aimed at adapting labor law and that are of direct interest to employers.

Partial activity (also referred to as short-time work) allows the employer to reduce the working time of his employees or to temporarily close his establishment or part of it in order to maintain employment, and to compensate in part for the loss of remuneration suffered by employees as a result of the unworked hours. Because of the economic consequences associated with the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, a draft Decree encourages and facilitates the use of the partial activity scheme.

Soulier Avocats provides an update on the latest measures in the form of a Q/A.

To take into account the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on economic activity, the URSSAF network introduced on March 16, 2020 a measure allowing employers to defer the payment of their social security contributions for a period of up to three months.

Partial activity: A press release from the Ministry of Labor specifies that companies have 30 days to submit their application to get a 100% compensation coverage, up to a maximum of 4.5 the value of the minimum wage.