Debate on introduction of 'assignment contracts'

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A report on employment law reform, commissioned by the French government, was issued in January 2004. The most controversial proposal in the 'Virville report' is the creation of a new 'assignment contract', enabling employees to be recruited for the duration of a particular project. Such a contract has been demanded by employers, particularly those in the information technology services sector, but is strongly opposed by trade unions.

The idea of an 'assignment contract' (contrat de mission) or 'project contract' (contrat de projet) was mooted by the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) employers' confederation in May 2000, during early bargaining under its 'industrial relations overhaul' programme (FR0002143F). It was to be an employment contract lasting a maximum of five years (as opposed to 18 months for the current fixed-term contract, including renewals) and whose end would be tied to the completion of the project for which the employee had been taken on (FR0005162N).

This issue was recently revisited by several employers’ associations directly or indirectly linked to the information technology (IT) sector. The largest of these is Syntec-informatique, the trade association of IT services and engineering companies (sociétés de services et d’ingénierie informatique, SSIIs) and software publishers. At Syntec-informatique’s initiative, the Syntec employers’ association - whose members are firms specialising in engineering, IT services, research and consultancy, and ongoing vocational training - published a document in early December 2003 outlining its stances in the area of industrial relations. Among the numerous proposals for bringing increased flexibility to work and employment was the creation of an 'assignment contract'.

Two employers’ bodies with very close links to the IT sector also took similar positions. The Young Managers' Centre (Centre des jeunes dirigeants, CJD), whose chair runs an SSII, presented a report on employment to the Prime Minister on 27 November 2003. Among the recommendations was the establishment of an assignment contract. Croissance Plus (More growth), a network of companies experiencing very high rates of growth (and thus often linked to IT), whose current chair also runs an SSII, adopted a similar stance.

The debate on a possible new assignment contract is therefore focused on the needs, in terms of employment flexibility, of companies specialising in high technology, particularly IT services firms.

Precedent in construction industry

The Labour Code already contains a provision enabling an employer to end the employment of an employee at the completion of work on a given site, without necessarily being subject to the provisions on redundancy (Article L321-12 of the Code). However, the use of such a 'site contract' (contrat de chantier) is restricted to the construction and public works sector, where it is a traditional form of employment for manual workers.

Syntec, which includes companies from a wide variety of sectors within its ranks, has as a member Syntec-ingénierie, which represents, among others, companies specialising in the construction industry. Since 1993, the national collective agreement applicable to technical, engineering, and other consultancy practices (known as the Syntec agreement - FR9904178N) has allowed these firms to conclude site contracts, a provision that a number of other parts of the consultancy sector would like to see applied to them. However, in 2001 the committee which interprets the Syntec collective agreement issued a recommendation stipulating that only member companies operating in the building industry should be able to avail of this form of employment contract.

Virville report proposal

The idea of creating an assignment contract was echoed by a committee (which included the chair of CJD) chaired by Michel de Virville, which was recently commissioned by the Minister of Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity to look into a reform of labour law.

In its report, entitled 'For a more effective Labour Code' (Pour un code du travail plus efficace), published on 15 January 2004, this committee advocated 'supplementing the spectrum of special contract types by creating a new form of contract, applicable to managerial and professional staff and other highly-qualified workers ... enabling an employee to be recruited by a company to take part in the implementation of a given project' (proposal 19 in the report). This would be a contract 'modelled on the fixed-term contract which would refer to the completion of a project rather than a set period of time'. In order to implement this change, the committee advocates introducing a specific provision into the Labour Code (therefore distinct from the provisions on site contracts), and to referring the task of organising the criteria for using such a contract to extended sector-level collective agreements in each industry.

There is no maximum duration of the proposed assignment contract referred to in the Virville report, but the Minister of Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity, has spoken of a period 'of three to five years'.

Heated responses from unions and IT workers

As the Virville report was one of two reports commissioned as preparation for a 'mobilisation on employment' (mobilisation sur l'emploi) law promised by the government for spring 2004, the trade unions have adopted a stance on the topic of assignment contracts. All the unions have stated that this type of contract would create potential for more precarious employment, with the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC) even dubbing it an 'anti-manager scheme' due to the targeting of the assignment contract on 'managerial and professional staff and other highly-qualified workers'.

As for the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) employers' confederation, it expressed regret that the proposed assignment contract would be a priori restricted to particular categories of the labour force, and has asked that companies be 'trusted' to use such a provision properly.

In the IT sector, although the unionisation rate is low, reactions to the assignment contract proposals have been heated and widespread. The most dramatic is an online petition)launched by three IT sector unions in the Nantes region - affiliated to the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), and Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaires unitaires et démocratiques, SUD). On 5 February 2004, the unions handed in a document containing the first 18,000 signatures collected in this way below a text opposing the Syntec industrial relations proposals, and especially the assignment contract, to Syntec-informatique and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity.

Commentary

In the space of a few weeks, three reports were presented to the government advocating the creation of an assignment contract. In addition to the Virville report, the 'Fries report' on the video games industry should also be mentioned, as well as the 'Gourinchas report' on the use of casual labour in the public broadcasting sector (FR0402101N). This obviously means that this topic, alluded to several times by the Minister of Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity even before these reports were published, has a good chance of being included in the forthcoming 'mobilisation on employment' law. (Yannick Fondeur, IRES)