Section 2: Branch agreements and professional agreements.

The territorial scope of application of branch agreements and professional agreements may be national, regional or local. Unless otherwise specified, the term “branch agreement” refers to the collective agreement and branch agreements, professional agreements and inter-branch agreements.

The branch is responsible for : 1° To define the employment and working conditions of employees as well as the guarantees applicable to them in the matters referred to in articles L. 2253-1 and L. 2253-2 under the conditions provided for by the said articles. 2° To regulate competition between the companies falling within its scope.

The branches have a national scope of application. However, some of the provisions of their agreements may be defined, adapted or supplemented at local level. Employers’ organisations set up in accordance with article L. 2131-2 that are affiliated or members of employers’ organisations recognised as representative in the branch are entitled to negotiate, within the perimeter of the branch, collective agreements whose scope is regional, departmental or local, and to…

The validity of a branch agreement or a professional agreement is subject to it being signed by one or more representative employee trade union organisations having received, in the elections taken into account for the measurement of the audience provided for in 3° of article L. 2122-5 or, where applicable, in the elections referred to in article L. 2122-6, at least 30% of the votes cast in favour of organisations…

The recognised representativeness of a category-based trade union organisation affiliated to a category-based trade union confederation in respect of the employees it is statutorily entitled to represent gives it the right to negotiate any provision applicable to that category of employees. Where the branch agreement or professional agreement only concerns a specific professional category covered by an electoral college, its validity is subject to its signature by one or more…

Branch agreements and professional agreements include, for the benefit of company employees taking part in negotiations, as well as in meetings of the joint bodies that they set up, provisions relating to the procedures for exercising the right to be absent, compensation for loss of wages or the maintenance of wages, as well as compensation for travel expenses. For companies with a workforce below a threshold defined by decree of…

I.-A permanent joint committee for negotiation and interpretation is set up by agreement or convention in each branch. II – The joint committee performs the following tasks of general interest: 1° It represents the industry, in particular in support of companies and vis-à-vis the public authorities; 2° It monitors working conditions and employment; 3° It draws up an annual activity report which it enters in the national database mentioned in…

Branch or professional agreements set up joint observatories for collective bargaining. They lay down the procedures according to which, in the absence of a conventional stipulation on the same subject, these observatories are to receive company or establishment agreements concluded for the implementation of a legislative provision.

A branch agreement may include, where appropriate in the form of a standard agreement indicating the various choices left to the employer, specific stipulations for companies with fewer than fifty employees. These specific stipulations may relate to all the negotiations provided for in this code. The employer may apply this standard agreement by means of a unilateral document indicating the choices he has made after informing the social and economic…