How to develop a job protection / PSE plan in your company?
Any company with at least 50 employees that initiates a redundancy procedure – at least 10 employees within 30 days – is required to draw up a job protection plan (PSE) .
Since 2013, the job security law contained in the ANI has changed the order of negotiations and the role of the authorities. Henceforth, it is advisable to approach the social measures before the economic project. Social measures are now the subject of negotiation with union delegates (if the company is not in the unilateral process) and the economic project is submitted within the framework of information / consultation of the Central Works Council ( CCE) and/or the Works Council (CE).
What are the keys to developing a PSE that is as effective as it is satisfactory for everyone? Collective agreement or unilateral document?
To establish a PSE, you have two options:
– Negotiate a collective agreement with the trade unions represented in the company;
– Draw up a unilateral document without prior negotiation or after negotiations have failed.
In both cases, you must imperatively inform the works council (CE), and ask for its consultation. On this occasion, the draft collective agreement on social measures will be presented, as well as the economic project underlying the decision to cut jobs. If the Works Council cannot question the measures provided for in the draft majority collective agreement, its consultation is nevertheless mandatory. You must detail the number of planned job cuts, the professional categories concerned, the redundancy criteria defining the link between the cut positions and the employees ultimately targeted by a redundancy measure, the provisional timetable for economic redundancies and the social measures to ‘accompaniement. Remember that a redundancy of a collective nature has no professional or personal link with the people who, after the proposal for internal redeployment, would actually be dismissed. It is indeed a restructuring decision which determines a target organization in connection with a coherent economic project which justifies the elimination of a certain number of positions.
Inform the “Direccte”
The PSE involves informing the Regional Directorate for Business , Competition, Consumption, Labor and Employment (Direccte) of the opening of negotiations with union delegates and the works council. In this case, the collective agreement will be submitted to the Direccte for validation in order to allow its application within the company. If a unilateral document is drawn up, you must submit this document to the Direccte, which will be responsible for approving it. Approval is a possible route, but it risks requiring more information to be transmitted to the Direccte given the absence of social dialogue.
You should also know that the decision of the Direccte can be the subject of a contentious appeal, that is to say before the administrative judge.
To download the notification to be sent to the Direccte, go to service-public.fr .
Social measures, a way to limit damage
In general , social measures aim to limit the number of dismissals with regard to internal redeployment measures or any other mechanism to safeguard jobs. Indeed, the PSE that you draw up must systematically include a section concerning the redeployment of dismissed employees, even if the Macron law has somewhat relaxed the internal redeployment procedure for employees abroad. The subject of internal redeployment remains a central and strong obligation of any collective redundancy project. The procedure for monitoring the implementation of the redeployment plan must be specified in the PSE via a monitoring committee. The procedures relating to participants, both internal (Management, union delegates, members of the Works Council, etc.), and external (Direccte representatives, Pôle Emploi, service provider in charge of coordinating the system, etc.) and decision-making will be defined. .
Mandatory content of the ESP
Your PSE must imperatively contain the following elements , the list not being exhaustive:
– Actions planned for the internal and external redeployment of employees
– Creation of new activities by the company
– Support for the creation of new activities or takeover of existing activities by employees
– Adaptation or retraining training actions, validation of acquired experience (VAE), use of the CPF
– Measures to reduce or adjust working time (including overtime), conditions for implementing redeployment leave or the professional security contract (CSP)
– A specific redeployment plan for employees over 50 or whose professional reintegration proves complicated for social or qualification reasons.
