Prohibitions imposed by draft amendment to Labor Code
The draft law on the organization of employment contracts and the abolition of sub-contracting stipulates that fixed-term contracts will be limited to three exceptional cases, said the Minister of Social Affairs, Issam Lahmar, specifying that these are work requiring an unusual increase in workload, temporary replacement of a permanent employee and seasonal work, which cannot be the subject of open-ended contracts due to the use or nature of the activity.
During a hearing of the Committee on Health, Women, Social Affairs and the Disabled of the Assembly of People's Representatives (ARP), the Minister recalled that the use of fixed-term contracts is already provided for in the Labor Code and includes seasonal work or work requiring an unusual increase in workload.
'The proposed amendment is important and essentially concerns the obligation to conclude employment contracts for an indefinite period and to limit fixed-term contracts to a few exceptions,' he said.
The Minister clarified that the use of subcontracting will be criminalized, while this practice will not affect the services and works included in Article 30 (new) of the Labor Code.
He informed that the new draft amendment applies to the private sector, noting that the regulatory texts will be published with regard to the tenure of agents working as subcontractors in the public sector, subject to specific regulations.
He pointed out that the aim of this project is to abolish fixed-term employment contracts and definitively prohibit the subcontracting of labor, with the possibility of proposing regulations on the organization of service companies and the execution of works.
The Minister of Social Affairs stressed that the draft amendment to the Labor Code is part of the implementation of the decision of the President of the Republic of 6 March 2024 on the cancellation of sub-contracting and the prohibition of all forms of fraud.
It should be recalled that President Kaïs Saïed, recently chaired a meeting of the Council of Ministers which examined in particular this draft law amending certain provisions of the Labor Code.
The text aims, among other things, to prohibit and criminalize sub-contracting, while safeguarding the rights of workers whose fixed-term contracts have been terminated, as well as those whose contracts have been cancelled as of 6 March 2024, in order to prevent them from benefiting from the new provisions announced for the first time on that date by the President of the Republic.
The Head of State affirmed that this method 'must cease to exist' and 'die out like a wild species of history', adding that employers 'who think they are above the law and dismiss contractors in order to evade the new legislation will be subject to criminal sanctions'.
On March 6, Saied had also called for the Labor Code to be amended to put an end to subcontracting in the private sector, which he described as 'human trafficking' and 'trafficking in the labor of the poor and needy'.
To illustrate his point, he denounced the disparity in wages between subcontracting companies and their workers, citing the case of a company that charges 1,410 dinars per contract, while the workers concerned receive only 570 dinars.
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