Force employees placed on short-time work to telework? It is "illegal work", replies the Ministry of Labor which had already warned last week that this type of abuse would be "heavily punished". Faced with cases of employers asking their employees who are partially unemployed or looking after children to continue working, the ministry clarified the penalties for what amounts to "illegal work".
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Up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros
First, it will be necessary to "reimburse the sums touched for partial unemployment", then it will be "forbidden to benefit for a maximum period of 5 years from public aid in the field of employment or vocational training". Finally, article 441-6 of the Criminal Code, which punishes fraud against a public administration, is intended to apply and provides for two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros. "It is completely illegal and it will be heavily punished," warned Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud last week.
In addition, while the CFDT of the telecommunications operator SFR had denounced last week a request for partial unemployment concerning 5,000 jobs, or 40% of the workforce, as a "windfall effect", the entourage of the Minister specified "that to his knowledge SFR had not asked". The use of partial unemployment had been requested Friday evening by 220,000 companies for 2.2 million employees in total, said Muriel Pénicaud Sunday.
220,000 companies have applied for partial unemployment
"As of Friday evening, we had 220,000 companies that had asked for partial unemployment for all or part of their employees. This is 65,000 more than the day before," said Muriel Pénicaud. The requests concerned "2.2 million workers" on Friday evening, "600,000 more" than Thursday, she added. "We are in the thousands of requests per minute," she said, confirming that the device is in high demand.
"The main areas" concerned are "industry, accommodation and catering, construction and the non-food trade", as "garages, which are very affected at the moment," said the minister.