less paid after exercising their right of withdrawal, two postal workers recover their salaries

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They won their case four years later. THE State Council a rejected the appeal of The Post Office, who persisted refuse of repay THE deductions that she had operated on wages of two employees of the industrial mail platform (PIC) of Wissous (Essonne) After the exercise of their right of withdrawal au beginning of the epidemic of Covid-19.

Deductions from wages for “absence of service provided”

Viviane and Catherine had learned at the time through a “letter” from their director that he was going to carry out “deductions” for “absence of service provided” on their pay for July, August and September 2020.

The two women had in fact invoked their “right of withdrawal” after the start of the first confinement from March 17, 2020.

The two postal workers subsequently seized administrative justice to obtain reimbursement of these salary deductions.

Justice had already ruled in favor of the two employees twice

The administrative court of Versailles then the administrative court of appeal of Versailles had thus successively given reasonin February 2022 and July 2023.

The Post Office, however, appealed to cassation before the Council of State, the highest court in the French administrative order, so as not to have to return the sums involved.

” None […] salary deduction cannot be made against […] of agents who withdrew from a work situation for which they had a reasonable grounds to believe that she presented a serious and imminent danger for the life or health of each of them”, generally provides for a 2011 decree relating to health and safety at work at La Poste.

La Poste indicates that it has made means of protection available

But the Post Office in fact criticized the Versailles administrative court of appeal for not having taken into account “the “means made available” to its agents to protect themselves from Covid-19 in their workplace: it had constituted “ of the stocks of hydroalcoholic gel and hand towels.

However, “this means, new in cassation, is ineffective and can only be discarded”sweeps the Council of State in a judgment dated October 10, 2024.

Compliance by the employer with the recommendations issued (…) by the government during an epidemic does not exclude the legitimate exercise of the right of withdrawal by an agent who justifies (…) a reasonable grounds to believe that his work situation presents a serious and imminent danger to his life or health.

The company's CHSCT pointed to a “serious and imminent danger”

“Public information on the risks linked to the virus […]in view of the information relayed by the press and the government […]reported potentially serious medical consequences and the necessity […] to reduce contact between people,” recall the Parisian judges.

The Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee (CHSCT) had also “initiated an alert procedure”:

The “number of agents present” and “the insufficiency of protective measures to limit contact between them” suggested that there was “a serious and imminent danger”, particularly in the transport shuttle which transported postal workers to public transport.

La Poste definitively ordered to reimburse deductions

Each of the two applicants therefore had “reasonable grounds to believe that she was in a work situation presenting serious and imminent danger for his life or his health.

La Poste has, under these conditions, been definitively ordered to reimburse them for the “deductions” made on their salaries for their absences from work.

She will even have to add €3,000 to itto each of them, for their respective legal costs.

C.B. / PressPepper

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