Court to review AFP’s summer scam in Nov

Over the summer AFP held back from paying a considerable sum due to most of us, pledging to pay it in June 2016. SUD has filed a lawsuit to force the immediate payment of the money due to us.

If you look back at your pay sheets from the summer of 2014, most likely you will find that you received a special vacation payment, or an indemnité congés payés, that was higher than the amount deducted for the period that you were absent on holiday.

Look at the example of the pay sheet of this 5th category journalist (although the principle is the same for all categories of employees).

For each day of vacation taken, AFP deducted the daily gross wage of €178.875, and paid an indemnity of €198.523. The gain for the employee was €19.648 per day.

Then look at a pay sheet from this summer. The indemnity is the same as the amount deducted for each day of vacation taken. Instead of paying the higher vacation indemnity to us immediately as it has in recent years, AFP’s management decided to apply a strict maintenance of salary.

Again taking the case of the 5th category journalist cited above, in the hypothetical case where he/she took four weeks of vacation and hasn’t had a raise, then the sum due but held back by AFP is €471.552 (24 days x €19.648 per day).

"We’ll pay the difference in June 2016 — nothing has changed in the formula used to calculate what is paid to you," was the message, more or less, we received from AFP management. But that’s not true! For many of us, it is not just a question of a differed payment as it could well turn out to be less paid out. (The calculation methods are too complex to go into here.)

SUD repeatedly called on AFP’s management to pay the entire indemnity due after each time an employee takes vacation, as it has done in previous years.

During annual wage negotiations held on September 30, the head of Human Resources, Philippe Le Blon, said he decided personally to change the payment of the vacation indemnity. He said it was not normal that employees should receive an indemnity higher than their normal monthly salary. However that is sense of Article L3141-22 of the French Labor Code.

SUD has filed a lawsuit against AFP before the Tribunal de Grand Instance of Paris with the case to be heard on 17 November at 2 pm.

The lawsuit is part of our constant efforts to combat the anti-social measures of the management and to build a widespread movement against the Plan Hoog.

Paris, 06 October 2015
SUD-AFP (Solidarity - Unity - Democracy)