Employee representation

New rules on workplace employee representation have been adopted by the national assembly in France. The legislation is intended to simplify the structure for companies with between 50 and 300 employees by allowing three different types of representative to be combined into a single committee (see Labour Research, April 2015, page 8).

In addition, there are to be new regional bodies, made up of equal numbers of trade unionists and employers, to which the 4.6 million employees in companies with fewer than 11 employees will be able to appeal.

The new bodies are expected to begin operating in July 2017. They have been criticised heavily by the employers, who say they will interfere with “direct dialogue” between employers and “their employees”.