The Syntec collective bargaining agreement provides for a number of working time arrangements, including JRTTs, to meet the needs of the various activities it covers.
It is appropriate to present all the terms and conditions envisaged by this agreement, before analyzing the additional options that may be available to the companies concerned.
What is RTT?
- RTT = reduced working hours
- To qualify, they must be provided for in a collective agreement.
- They are used to compensate for the fact that collective working hours are exceeded, in the form of rest days.
- In this way, RTTs are granted to employees whose employment contract provides for hours in excess of 35 hours.
The scheme, introduced in the early 2000s, was subsequently abolished by the law of August 20, 2008. RTTs survive in two ways:
- Through collective agreements signed before 2008.
- In compensation schemes for exceeding collective working hours introduced after 2008 and still referred to as “RTT” or “JRTT” in the SYNTEC agreement.
What are the terms of the SYNTEC agreement?
The SYNTEC agreement envisages three ways of organizing working hours.
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The standard Syntec agreement
This arrangement applies to ETAM employees and certain managerial staff. It corresponds to a standard 35-hour working week.
Under this arrangement, it is possible to replace all or part of the overtime payment by an equivalent rest period. To do this, a company-wide agreement must be adopted, or, in the absence of trade unions, after consultation of the CSE and agreement of the employees concerned.
This method does not therefore offer any considerable leeway for the companies concerned.
In other words, either they can negotiate a company agreement to replace the payment of all or part of overtime, or they can’t, and the only option open to these companies will therefore be to place their employees on the 35-hour working week and pay all the overtime worked, which unfortunately doesn’t correspond to the economic reality of many small companies subject to the Syntec agreement.
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The “carrying out assignments” modality
Option no. 2 in the Syntec collective bargaining agreement corresponds to a fixed number of hours per week, with an annual ceiling in days.
The employees concerned may only be engineers and managers whose annual remuneration is at least equal to the annual Social Security ceiling, which in 2023 corresponds to the sum of €43,992.
These employees are less autonomous than executives eligible for a fixed-day agreement, but they do have special assignments that prevent them from following a strictly defined timetable.
Under this arrangement, employees can work up to 38.30 hours a week, with a maximum of 219 working days a year.
The 3.5 hours of overtime are intended to be compensated by half-days of under-activity (recovery of these days in the form of compensatory rest, etc.).
Please note: in order to apply this system, the remuneration of employees concerned by this system must include variations in working hours up to a limit of 10%, but must not be less than 115% of the agreed minimum annual salary.
In other words, employees working under this arrangement must receive an annual remuneration corresponding to 115% of the agreed minimum wage, or an annual remuneration at least equal to the annual Social Security ceiling.
Here again, such arrangements are in no way suited to SMEs and VSEs subject to the Syntec Agreement.
Such companies can’t afford to meet the financial conditions imposed by the industry-wide agreement to set up this system.
Nor do these companies necessarily have the option of derogating from this arrangement by adopting a more suitable working time arrangement through a company agreement(see below).
Clearly, these companies are condemned to either work 35 hours and pay overtime, or not work overtime and reduce their productivity.
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Daily rate
The Syntec Agreement offers companies the option of a fixed-days contract (modalité n°3).
The employees concerned may only work a maximum of 218 days per year per calendar year, including the solidarity day, for an employee who is present for a full year and has acquired all his or her paid leave entitlements, not taking into account conventional seniority leave (and any other leave provided for by company agreement or usage) and exceptional leave for family events provided for in the Syntec agreement.
Please note: within the Syntec agreement, only employees classified as 3.1 cannot be placed on a fixed-day contract.
However, if you want to place an employee on a fixed day rate, you will need to pay them 120% of the agreed minimum wage for employees in position 3.1, and 122% of the agreed minimum wage for employees in position 2.3.
This represents a gross monthly salary of €3,905.22 for an employee in position 2.3 and €4,292.40 for employees in position 3.1.
As a reminder, the changeover to a fixed-term working week also requires compliance with a number of legal and contractual conditions in order to be valid and avoid the risk of the fixed-term agreement becoming null and void.
Once again, this system is not adapted to the reality of many companies covered by the Syntec agreement.
How can I opt out of the Syntec agreement?
In reality, it appears that these procedures are not suited to most small and medium-sized companies covered by the SYNTEC agreement.
In fact, it presupposes overly drastic conditions that do not correspond to the economic reality of these companies.
Clearly, these companies can’t afford to comply with the terms and conditions proposed by the Syntec Agreement, because they can’t afford to pay their fixed-hour employees a minimum of €43,992 a year, or to apply the various supplements provided for by the branch agreement in these different terms and conditions.
For these companies, it is therefore necessary to derogate from the branch agreement.
This derogation can be achieved through the adoption of various company agreements:
Adopting a company agreement on the organization of working hours
The organization of working hours within companies can be achieved by means of agreements aimed at setting up an organization of working hours over a period longer than a week and at most equal to a year (or even three years, if authorized by a branch agreement or collective bargaining agreement).
This type of agreement makes it possible to adapt employees’ work patterns throughout the year, depending on the company’s activity, and thus avoid overtime during peak periods.
Clearly, a reference period is set, with a limit, above which overtime will be paid to employees.
For example, the limit for one year is set at 1607 hours: if at the end of the year one or more employees have exceeded this limit, they will have to be compensated for the overtime hours worked during the year.
It is also possible to set a weekly limit, e.g. 39 hours, beyond which hours worked during the same week are in any case considered as overtime, and paid with the salary for the month in question.
This arrangement can be put in place through a company agreement, or through a unilateral commitment by the employer.
In companies without employee representatives, adoption of the company-wide agreement will require a company-wide referendum and approval of the project by a 2/3 majority of the workforce.
Please note: if you decide to implement this type of agreement through a unilateral commitment, it can only be organized in work periods, equal to 9 weeks in companies with fewer than 50 employees, and four weeks for companies with 50 or more employees.
A company-wide agreement on the organization of working hours can therefore be an appropriate solution for small and medium-sized businesses wishing to derogate from the provisions of the Syntec Agreement and organize their own working hours.
However, the adoption of such an agreement presupposes either negotiation with employee representatives, or the introduction of a company-wide referendum in companies without such representatives. In the latter case, it will be necessary to obtain the approval of 2/3 of employees.
The introduction of such an arrangement by means of a unilateral commitment is less attractive because of the short period during which the agreement can be put in place.
Setting up an agreement overriding collective bargaining provisions relating to fixed-rate working days
Syntec lays down very strict conditions for setting up a fixed-rate working day agreement with a company’s employees.
Once again, these conditions may prevent smaller companies from implementing this type of agreement, even though they are sometimes more favorable to employees and better suited to the company.
Since September 2017, company agreements have enjoyed real primacy over branch agreements in this area.
It is therefore perfectly possible for your company to conclude an agreement extending the scope of fixed-price agreements.
This agreement may enable you to open up access to fixed-price agreements to employees who are not in position 3.1 or 2.3.
On the other hand, it will not be possible to extend this possibility to employees who are not managers or engineers, as the latter do not have sufficient autonomy to access this type of agreement. This would run the risk of rendering null and void any lump-sum agreements concluded on the basis of such an agreement.
It is also possible to provide for lower remuneration than that stipulated in the Syntec Agreement.
In fact, the only imperative that cannot be derogated from, even by company agreement, are the collective bargaining minimums defined by regularly revised scales.
On the other hand, the arrangements implemented within Syntec, under which an employee in position 3.1 can only be placed under a fixed-term workweek agreement if he or she receives 120% of the agreed minimum, do not constitute an imperative arrangement.
It is perfectly possible to derogate from this rule by means of a company agreement, and to provide for a lesser or different form of compensation.
Once again, this will require the adoption of a company-wide agreement, in line with the above-mentioned conditions.
Why derogate from the Syntec Agreement’s provisions on the organization of working hours?
It would appear that the Syntec collective bargaining agreement’s provisions on the organization of working hours are not adapted to the economic reality of small and medium-sized companies subject to this agreement.
It is therefore necessary for these companies to use company-level negotiations to derogate from branch provisions, within the limits set by law.
These derogations will enable these companies to adapt their working hours to their real needs, and thus support their growth and productivity.
Please note: there is no question of allowing companies to derogate from the branch in their sole interest, without taking into account the interests of employees.
The aim is to enable these companies to adapt working hours to their needs, while taking into account employees’ working conditions and envisaging compensation packages for employees that are simply better adapted to the economic reality of these companies.
Negotiations at company level would thus enable small and medium-sized businesses to set up working time arrangements that are fully adapted to their needs, with compensation packages for their employees that are also adapted to their economic health.
In fact, it seems important for the SYNTEC Convention to reform in this area.
Firstly, because the temptation to derogate from the rules it has implemented in this area is great for these companies, which find these provisions totally unsuitable and out of touch with their reality.
As a result, the effectiveness of the agreement is less important, which is a real problem since the original aim of such an agreement is to federate as many companies as possible within the same branch and with the same working conditions, thus providing unrivalled legal certainty for employees.
Secondly, because most small and medium-sized companies wishing to derogate from these provisions, which hinder their economic development, cannot in practice negotiate within their companies.
In the absence of employee representatives, it is difficult to set up a company referendum and negotiate directly with employees.
Not only is such an arrangement particularly time-consuming in these companies, where management is generally multi-tasking, but it is also particularly tricky, in practice, to explain to employees the reasons for these negotiations, to make them understand the benefits for the company and the quid pro quos that each party must agree to negotiate in order to conclude this agreement.
In the final analysis, it is difficult to negotiate with employees who are not accustomed to this exercise, which requires real experience, which employee representatives generally have. This is because it is necessary to be able to take into account the needs of the agreement for the company, and not just the modification of their own working conditions, which can be tricky for employees who would refuse any major modification to their working conditions, even if this were absolutely necessary to enable the company to evolve, and even if the proposals made to these employees appeared, objectively, to be perfectly acceptable.
We therefore feel that Syntec needs to carry out a major overhaul of this part of the agreement, in order to make it better adapted to the reality of all companies, and ultimately to reinforce the effectiveness of this agreement at national level, which would have the advantage of enabling all companies to benefit from the same base in this area, also ensuring that employees enjoy uniform working conditions throughout the industry.
In the absence of any reform, it seems clear that many of the companies that have not yet done so will derogate from these drastic conditions through company negotiation.
Naturally, DESRUMAUX AVOCATS will be happy to provide you with information on any changes to the Syntec regulations in this area, or to help you negotiate and adopt a company-wide agreement.
