Sectoral agreement on mandating employees to negotiate

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In October 1998, employers and trade unions in France's supermarket and hypermarket food retailing sector reached agreement on the "mandating" procedure. This enables companies with no union representatives to negotiate agreements with employees mandated for this purpose.

On 15 October 1998, the sectoral employers' organisation and the CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC and CGT-FO trade unions signed an amendment to the national collective agreement for the supermarket and hypermarket food retailing industry. This amendment aims to introduce the mandating procedure (mandatement) for authorising employees to negotiate agreements in this sector, which has a total of 600,000 workers. The procedure for mandating employees to bargain in companies which have no trade union presence (FR9807123F) was originally provided for in an intersectoral agreement signed on 31 October 1995, which required further sectoral agreements in order to come into effect. The procedure was given legal backing by the law of 12 December 1996 and was made more flexible by the May 1998 law on the 35-hour working week (FR9806113F) - a sectoral agreement is not longer necessary to introduce mandating in companies in the case of negotiations over the 35-hour week. The amendment to the supermarket and hypermarket agreement implements the provisions of the 1996 legislation.

According to the amendment, bargaining over an agreement on the 35-hour working week in line with the new legislation in companies employing fewer than 50 workers may be conducted with a workforce delegate exercising the functions of a trade union delegate under the stipulations of the Labour Code. In addition, mandating by trade unions will be introduced as an experiment over the next three years in companies employing fewer than 50 workers, or fewer than 200 workers until the end of 1999. The mandated employee must be an elected employee representative, if the company has any, or failing this, a worker who has been employed by the company for at least a year. Agreements concluded by a "mandated" employee cannot be signed before they have been discussed with the workforce.

Time spent in meetings with the employer does not result in a loss of pay. In addition, mandated employees are allocated 16 hours of paid time off in which to prepare negotiations with the union which appointed them. The time is increased to 30 hours when an agreement is reached, so as to enable the employee to follow it through. Mandated employees are covered by industrial accident legislation whenever they travel to union offices.

In order for an agreement signed with a mandated employee is to be valid, it must be sent to sector-level unions and employers and registered with the departmental labour office and the sector-level National Joint Employment Commission (Conseil paritaire national de l'emploi, CPNE). In addition, the company must send CPNE an annual report on negotiations. Agreements reached under the mandating procedure can be terminated by notifying the trade union or the employer.