News
Newsletter
18 October 2019
The Labour Councils are putting up a fight!
The Grenoble Labour Court, in a judgement of 22 July 2019, refused to align itself with the position of the Court of Cassation, which had concluded on 17 July 2019 (Cass. opinion, 17 July 2019) that the compensation scale for dismissal without real and serious cause was compatible with Article 10 of Convention No. 158 of the International Labour Organisation. The International Labour Organisation Convention No. 158 of 1982 and ratified by France on 16 March 1989 on dismissal concerning the termination of the employment relationship at the initiative of the employer. Article 10 provides: "If the bodies referred to in Article 8 of this Convention come to the conclusion that the dismissal is unjustified, and if, having regard to national legislation and practice, they do not have the power or do not consider it possible in the circumstances to annul the dismissal and/or to order or propose the reinstatement of the worker, they shall be empowered to order the payment of adequate compensation or any other form of reparation considered appropriate"..This formula is found in Article 24 b) of the revised European Social Charter of 3 May 1996. The trial judges, including the Grenoble Labour Court, are resisting the Court of Cassation. In order to award a higher compensation than that which should have been ordered, if they had based themselves on the Macron scale, the judges of the Grenoble Labour Court took over the provisions of Article 10 of the ILO Convention, which implies that the compensation should be in line with the situation of the former employee. In this case, the employee obtained the sum of 8,000 Euros as compensation for breach of the safety obligation. The employee was subjected to psychological harassment. She was being monitored and given anxiolytics and anti-depressants. The judges took this context into consideration to order the payment of a higher indemnity which, in their opinion, was more in line with what she had experienced in the company. Two important points emerge from the analysis of this judgment:
- The trial judges are showing resistance to the position of the Court of Cassation, which validated the Macron scale,
- The employer's failure to comply with its safety obligation in the event of harassment may cost it dearly. Employers, the Macron scale is not uniformly applied by all labour courts.
Find out more and be supported in implementing effective measures to prevent the health of your employees.
Follow me also on :
