This is a Christmas gift that Disney France would have liked to avoid. This Wednesday, December 18, the Court of Cassation ruled in favor of a former employee of the group, a decision that indirectly entails the outright annulment of the annual flat rate agreement in days that applies to the company’s directors.
Remember that this system provides for a different working duration than the legal or conventional one, based on a fixed price established in hours (week, month or year) or days (during the year).
The employee benefits from a certain number of days off, planned in advance. In exchange, you benefit from a salary increase for additional days of work. If the employee gives up part of the rest days, he or she will not be able to work more than 235 days a year.
In all cases, the number of days worked must not call into question the worker’s guarantees regarding daily and weekly rest, paid vacations and company holidays.
Guarantees
These are the guarantees that have not been respected in this case.
Reminder of the facts. The plaintiff was hired as an IT operations director in 2001 and signed an individual daily package contract in 2007. In 2018 he obtained a contractual termination and left Euro Disney.
The same year he approached the labor court to obtain payment of various sums for the execution of the employment contract.
After two contradictory court decisions, in particular from the Court of Appeal, the Court of Cassation found that the framework proposed by the company did not meet the legal requirements.
Its provisions did not establish “an effective and regular control that allows the employer to remedy in a timely manner a workload possibly incompatible with a reasonable duration, it cannot guarantee that the scope and workload remain reasonable and ensure good distribution, over time, of the work of the interested party and, therefore, guarantee the protection of the safety and health of the worker,” the ruling reads.
For the Court of Cassation, the Court of Appeal “should have deduced that the agreement for a certain number of days was void.”
An incompatible collective agreement
Based on section 11 of the Preamble of the 1946 Constitution, article 151 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (European Social Charter) and the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, the highest jurisdiction recalls that “ “The right to health and rest is among the constitutional requirements.”
“Due to the lack of validity of the collective agreement due to lack of sufficient guarantees, the individual working hours package is not compliant. The invalidation of the collective agreement is applicable to the complainant, but also to all executives subject to this agreement”, explains Olivier Bongrand , plaintiff’s attorney.
“Sufficient guarantees have not been respected, so this agreement does not guarantee the protection and health of the employee,” he continues.
In addition to challenging this agreement, Disney France must compensate the plaintiff for the withdrawal of overtime and paid vacations. On this point, the Court of Cassation refers the matter to the Paris Court of Appeal.
Source: BFM TV
