They are called David and Mariegniouma. Both, employees of a Breton company selling auto parts, were dismissed during the confinement period on May 5. And this by videoconference. Today, the two men claim the partial unemployment benefits promised by their employer, which were never paid to them. A file has been filed with the industrial tribunal of Rennes, in Brittany, to object to the legality of these redundancies.
In the midst of the Covid 19 crisis, the company had asked to benefit from partial unemployment measures. The objective: to preserve the employment of its two employees. However, they will never see the color of this money, dismissed some time later by their employer in full confinement.
"The confinement arrived, so the company set up short-time working. After three weeks, he started talking about redundancy. In May, we received nothing in terms of wages, so that our boss received partial unemployment. For me it is a misappropriation of public good, it is completely illegal what he did ", explains David, commercial manager and one of the complainants in this case.
" It is a misappropriation of public property, it is completely illegal "The two men do not intend to let it go. Objecting the legality of these dismissals in the midst of the Covid 19 crisis, they went to the industrial tribunal. For François Macquaire, a lawyer at the French Confederation of Christian Workers of Ille-et-Vilaine, this situation is illegal: "What is totally insane is, on the one hand, to leave people in the midst of the Covid crisis 19, whereas the company touches partial unemployment to avoid dismissals, and on the other hand to divert the allowance because it is not even paid to the employees, that is to say that the company keeps the money ".
According to a report communicated at the end of June, 3,000 checks of partial unemployment were carried out by agents of the Direccte, the regional directorate for business, competition, consumption, work and employment. The organization counts 850 suspected fraud. Fraud punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.