The National Assembly validated Thursday the possibility for companies to pay an exceptional bonus zero paid employees paid up to 3,600 euros, one of the emergency measures to respond to the movement of "yellow vests". The measure was approved by 165 votes to 8, with 41 abstentions.
Up to 1,000 euros of premium. The government has decided to encourage companies to allocate, until March 31, this bonus "duty free", fully exempt up to 1,000 euros and reserved for employees paid less than three times the Smic, or 4,563 euros gross in 2019 The employer can decide this premium unilaterally until 31 January. Then, and before March 31, he will have to negotiate a company agreement. Several large private groups, such as Total, Orange or LVMH, and public companies such as SNCF, RATP and La Poste, have already committed to distribute bonuses to their employees.
A bonus deemed "unfair" by oppositions. "Many small and medium-sized companies will not be able to pay them", for lack of sufficient cash, and "this will place their employees in a situation of injustice", said Gilles Lurton (LR). The Communists and the Rogue, who also judged the device "arbitrary", asked in vain to make this premium tax-exempt mandatory "in very large companies" or those paying dividends. The latter, moreover, lambasted the fact, like the group Freedom and territories, that the device does not concern employees of the civil service. This is a "temporary exceptional measure that does not respond to the urgency (...) of a small patch," creaked Adrien Quattennens (LFI).
Answers from Muriel Pénicaud. This bonus "does not solve all problems, of course, but it is made for the most modest employees," said Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud. The oppositions, from left to right, feared that the premium would be reduced in the event of maternity leave. "When it's fuzzy, it's because there is a wolf," said the insular Clémentine Autain, while the Socialist Boris Vallaud carried an amendment to clarify this point. "A maternity leave is actually work (...) and a woman on maternity leave will have the full premium," said Muriel Pénicaud, before the rejection of the amendment. The government has also passed an amendment so that the payment of this exceptional bonus does not exclude workers from the benefit of the activity bonus, social benefit, to which they could claim.