Background
Adecco France and its employee representatives entered into a collective agreement on February 27, 2019 governing the company’s new representative institutions. The agreement delegated to each establishment-level health, safety, and working conditions commission (CSSCT-E) all of the establishment social and economic committee’s powers concerning health, safety, and working conditions, except the power to appoint an expert and the committee’s consultative functions.
On June 9, 2023, two members of the Adecco Ouest establishment social and economic committee submitted a reasoned request for an extraordinary CSSCT-E meeting and specified the proposed agenda. Adecco refused. The committee sought interim relief, and the Lyon Court of Appeal ordered Adecco to convene the meeting with the requested agenda items and to pay provisional damages. It reasoned that the statutory and contractual conditions for a meeting were satisfied and that Adecco could not assess either the advisability of the request or the relevance of the proposed agenda items.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation held that mandatory provisions of Articles L. 2315-27 and L. 2315-38 of the Labor Code require an employer to organize a CSSCT meeting when two employee-representative members make a reasoned request concerning health, safety, or working conditions. Interpreted consistently with those provisions, Adecco’s collective agreement likewise requires an extraordinary CSSCT-E meeting upon such a request.
But the right is limited to subjects falling within health, safety, or working conditions. The Lyon Court of Appeal therefore erred by treating the relevance of the proposed agenda as beyond review. It was required to determine whether the requested subjects actually fell within the CSSCT-E’s permitted field. The Court of Cassation vacated the appellate judgment in its entirety and remanded the case to the Grenoble Court of Appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A reasoned request by two employee-representative members triggers an employer’s duty to convene an extraordinary CSSCT meeting only when it concerns health, safety, or working conditions.
- An employer may not reject a qualifying request merely because it considers the meeting unnecessary, but the proposed subjects must remain within the commission’s statutory and delegated remit.
- A court ordering a meeting in interim proceedings must examine the proposed agenda rather than assume that every item selected by employee representatives is proper.
Why It Matters
The decision balances employee representatives’ mandatory right to obtain an extraordinary workplace health and safety meeting against the legal limits on a CSSCT’s authority. It confirms that the meeting obligation is enforceable while preventing that procedure from being used to place unrelated matters before the commission.
For employers, employee representatives, and lower courts, the decisive inquiry is the substance of each proposed agenda item: whether it genuinely concerns health, safety, or working conditions. The Court did not decide that Adecco properly refused the meeting; that issue remains for the Grenoble Court of Appeal on remand.