The text was expected. This Tuesday, the government published in the official journal the decree relating to the “implementation of the presumption of resignation in the event of the employee’s voluntary abandonment of post”. He returns to this change demanded by the right as the majority in Parliament and voted in the context of the law on unemployment insurance last December. An additional question and answer will be published “very soon”, also specifies Olivier Dussopt’s cabinet.
In detail, the decree “fixes the formal notice procedure implemented by the employer who intends to assert the presumption of resignation of the employee in the event of voluntary abandonment of his job”. A company finding itself faced with an abandonment of position will thus have to give formal notice to the employee concerned, “by registered letter or by letter delivered by hand against discharge”, so that he justifies his absence and resumes his position. The worker then has at least fifteen days to return to his post, after the formal notice. During this period, he can also challenge this “presumption of resignation”, by advancing for example medical reasons, his right to strike or his right of withdrawal.
Last December, during the examination of the bill on the reform of unemployment insurance, the LR group in the National Assembly had suggested fighting against job abandonment, which has multiplied since the pandemic, according to the elected. A point of view also supported by the majority: “An employee who abandons his position has access to more favorable compensation conditions than an employee who resigns”, had denounced in particular the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt. Until now, in fact, the abandoned employee could benefit from unemployment benefits.
At the end of the examination, amendments had therefore made it possible to change the law, by limiting the access of employees who had abandoned their position to unemployment insurance. These will now be presumed to have resigned, the parliamentarians predicted. To the chagrin of the deputies on the left, the wind is standing against this modification.
In February, a study by Dares returned to this hitherto unknown and poorly quantified phenomenon. The analysis qualified the abandonment of post as the “first reason” for breach of contract in the private sector following a dismissal for serious or gross negligence. The figures were far from anecdotal, 173,000 contracts having been terminated for serious or gross negligence, including 123,000 – 71% – for abandonment of post, according to the statistical service of the Ministry of Labor.
