In the canton of Neuchâtel, the watchmaking company Sellita, located in Crêt-du-Locle, requires its employees to stamp when they stop for a moment to go to the toilet and to stamp on their return. The time spent in the small corner is deducted from working time and therefore not paid.
On Wednesday, UNIA unionists demonstrated in front of this company with symbolic mobile toilets to offer “free pee” to staff. “It’s a scandal. A way of doing things that is as dehumanizing as it is humiliating,” said Solenn Ochsner, head of the industry sector at Unia Neuchâtel, indignant, quoted by the newspaper “L’Evénement syndical”.
“The majority of people active in this society are women of immigrant background,” notes the trade unionist, “with precarious statuses, who fear expressing themselves for fear of losing their job.” And to rebel in passing “against this luxury industry which shows such baseness towards its staff”.
According to the union, Sellita is not the only company to deduct toilet breaks from the work schedule. This practice was validated by the Neuchâtel justice system, more precisely by its Public Law Court last June. Quoted by the union newspaper, the former Vaudois national councilor Jean Christophe Schwaab criticizes this judgment, which he considers “false and sloppy reasoning”
The Cantonal Court considers that “toilet breaks, like other short breaks (private telephones, cigarettes, etc.), in principle constitute work interruptions, since the worker is not available to the employer during this period.
But for Jean Christophe Schwaab: “Urinating is an imperative need of every human being, it is even dangerous for health to hold back, while smoking is a personal choice, an optional activity, moreover discouraged by the authorities and the medical profession. An employer can refuse to provide a smoking area and a cigarette break, but he cannot prevent people from going to the toilets.
The judgment notes, however, that this stamping results in gender discrimination. “The court is tripping over its own carpet,” comments the Vaud socialist, “when it admits that, for women who are in their menstrual cycle or pregnant, the regulations must be different. This is proof that, when there is a physiological need, you need a break from working time.”
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