Can an employee working on Sundays freely exercise his right to vote?
Article L.3132-3 of the Labor Code provides that Sunday is the weekly day of rest for employees.
This very old principle comes to us from Judeo-Christian customs (Sunday is the Lord's Day!), Which made it obvious to introduce Sunday to organize national elections.
However, in recent years, Sunday rest has been called into question by an ever-increasing number of exemptions granted to working companies:
- In continuous work activities for production constraints, hotels, restaurants, places of drinking, tobacco, shows…;
- In tourist and commercial areas;
- In food retail stores;
And that without counting the exemptions granted by the mayor or the prefect.
Therefore a question arises, can we leave our work on Sundays to go and vote?
The MACRON law (yes, yes ... the same!) N ° 2015-990 of August 6, 2015 inserted an article L.3132-25-4 in the labor code, the last paragraph of which requires employers to "take necessary measures to allow employees to personally exercise their right to vote in national and local elections when they take place on Sunday ”.
However, the law only provides for Sunday work authorized on exemptions from the mayor or the prefect and for companies located in tourist and commercial areas.
So, if Sunday work is a condition of the employment contract (companies working continuously, in teams to meet production or customer constraints, hotels, restaurants drinking, tobacco, shows, etc.), or that the employer benefits from a permanent exemption (food retail outlets), being absent from your workstation to go and vote is not a given!
The problem is that if the law MACRON lays down the principle of the right to be absent to go to vote, curiously… NO sanction is envisaged against the employers who refuse to apply the law.
Some employers have been able to offer their employees the option of voting by proxy.
From a legal point of view, an employee who takes time off to exercise his civic duty cannot be penalized for abandoning his post. Such a reason would be crippling before the Labor Court.
But… it can cost him fewer hours of work, or the obligation to make up for them!
So, no, it is not so easy to take time off from your workstation to exercise your civic duty when you work on Sundays!
