Why thousands of employees miss their rights

Didier Gauthier is a happy baker. After more than thirty-eight years spent in the bakery, he will retire on July 1. Until then, the Sarthois still works at night but part-time, while receiving all of his salary. Preferred treatment on the part of his employer? Not really. To compensate for the arduousness of his work, the French legislator allows him, via his professional prevention account (read box below), An arrangement of his working hours until he retired. At the right time!

“Persue”, “wear” … But what are we talking about, exactly? This is the whole question, which has been running for decades and makes the subject a kind of black box. The idea of ​​”wear” at work was born from the 19th century, with the industrialization and the training of a working class. At the time, the days were endless, derisory wages and occupational diseases, such as silicosis or Satanism, murderers. Legislation limit children’s work and women under the effect of social and union mobilizations.

Six recognized risk factors

It was not until August 21, 2003 that a pension reform law introduces the concept of arduousness for the first time in French law. Seven years later, a new reform finally brings a definition: it consists in the “worker’s exposure to one or more linked professional risk factors: marked physical constraints, an aggressive physical environment, or certain work rhythms which are likely to leave lasting, identifiable and irreversible traces on its health”.

Since 2017, six risk factors have been recognized and give the right to compensation: noise, night work, repetitive, in successive alternating teams -the three -eight system for example -, carried out in a hyperbaric environment (under pressure, such as underwater divers), or by extreme temperatures. The employee can obtain a 100 %paid part -time training or part -time passage. The system from which Didier Gauthier will benefit, our baker, is an inheritance of the “personal prevention account of arduousness” implemented under the chairmanship of François Hollande.

A moving definition

At the time, ten arduous criteria were taken into account. But the employers had argued that four of them – manual handling of loads, painful postures, mechanical vibrations and exposure to dangerous chemical agents – were difficult to objectify. They require regular individual follow -up to be implemented, especially in SMEs, said Medef. For his part, Emmanuel Macron, then a candidate for the Elysée, did not like the term arduousness. “He induces work is pain,” he said. The word has therefore disappeared from radars to make way for the simple “professional prevention account” (C2P), more politically correct.

However, if the previous categorization had been maintained, 2.8 million employees would have been affected in the long term according to the projections, underlines Isabelle Mercier, national secretary in charge of work at the CFDT. Much more than the 639,000 selected in the system at the end of 2021.

Rachel is one of those who are not among the beneficiaries. However, his work with the elderly for over twenty years puts his body to the test. “Bringing people out of their beds to the strength of the arms, bending down to help them put on their compression stockings, their underwear is trying,” said this nursing assistant in a private in-office Ehpad. “I enjoy taking care of the elders but it hurts everywhere. Before the reform of the professional prevention account, she could have claimed retirement early departure or a planning of her schedules for painful postures.

Insoluble situations

As for Justine Akpabie-Sittie, her story illustrates the importance of measuring all the reality of hard work at work. After many years of career, this social life assistant in a home support association of the elderly feels embarrassment on the left shoulder. Following multiple medical consultations, the verdict falls: rupture of the rotator cuff due to repetitive gestures.

To this first hazard is added, a few months later, a problem at the left foot following a fall. His doctor sets up a file for recognition of occupational disease, accepted in early 2024. But Justine did not transmit it to her employer. “I needed to continue working to acquire retirement points. She asks to only visit patients with good mobility and whose home is accessible on one level or at least equipped with an elevator. His requests remain a dead letter. And the worst ends up occurring. “One day, a gentleman with Parkinson fell out of the shower. I panicked, tried to call my employer, but no one answered. I accompanied her to the emergency room where she was made to him seven stitches, ”she recalls.

Traumatized, she addresses an email to her employer reiterating her request not to take care of this type of elderly, because she does not “want to kill someone”. In the absence of a possible internal reclassification, it was dismissed for incapacity in November 2024. Traumatized and worn, the almost sixty-year-old of Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis) is now unemployed. She trains in computer science at Emmaüs Connect, but wonders: “Will I be able to rework? And to do what until my retirement? »»

Worn, body and mind

Cleanliness agent for over twenty years, Nelly Lemaire also wonders how she will carry out the continuation and end of her professional career. Because of a ten -year break to raise her three children, this sixty -something cannot claim a full -rate retirement before 64 years. Nelly Lemaire, however, says he is indeed “broken” by her job. One in two morning, around 5:30 a.m., she got into her car and travels 17 km to take her service on a logistics platform near Guingamp (Côtes-d’Armor). According to her schedule, she continues a half hours at six hours of cleaning per day. Wash the ground, challenge the sanitary facilities, empty the trash cans … “Sleepshines is tall. We walk a lot. When the water points are not well located, I have to drag my full bucket between the floors. It is heavy and accidentogenic. The garbage collection points are not necessarily close either. So I have to wear the garbage cans at arm’s length in the right place. »»

Even if she is not the type to complain, she frequently feels low back pain. “My osteo relieves me as it can but I can see that my body is worn. My job is also psychically hard. It is an eternal restart. As soon as it was finished cleaning the floors that people walk on it. What a lack of consideration! When she does not work on the logistics platform, Nelly Lemaire performs hours of cleaning in a medical office and in individuals. What to exacerbate his pain.

Non -taken psychosocial risks

Physical wear and tear is one thing. But working conditions also have consequences on mental health. However, the criteria to recognize professional wear and tear do not take into account these psychosocial risks to the chagrin of the unions. The CFDT militates for the reinstatement of the four criteria excluded from the system in 2017. “There is more and more burn out, insists Frédéric Fischbach, president of the CFTC Social Health. People crack physically and psychically because of work. »»

Denis Gravouil, confederate secretary in charge of social protection at the CGT, adds: “It takes a simpler system and which concerns more people.” This union pleads for the integration of psychosocial risks (RPS) and those linked to organization and management. The CFDT, for its part, promotes a “cartography of professions which are the source of professional wear” and no longer an approach by type of risk exposure, necessarily more limiting.

“From this census carried out by the professional branches, the employees exercising the professions listed would in fact be listed in a arduous account,” explains Isabelle Mercier. It would then be up to the employer to demonstrate that his collaborator is not exposed to the risks. “Not all unions are campaigning for an increase in the number of quarters (eight at most today) granted to victims of professional wear allow them to retire early.

Act for good

Obviously, the perception on the side of companies is not quite the same. These highlight the consequences that would result from this extension of criteria -training funding, replacement of staff … -, easy to assume for large companies, less for others. Leaning on good at work hardness is not yet another fight between employers and unions. Employees exposed to significant physical and psychological constraints have significantly reduced life expectancy.

According to INSEE, executive men live on average 5.3 years more than workers, more exposed to risks. The gap is 3.4 years for women. The painful professions lead to mortality due to an increase in cardiovascular diseases, cancers and musculoskeletal disorders. This is why unions want to make the subject one of the key points of pension discussions.

In January 2025, François Asselin, who finished his mandate at the head of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME), had blown up an idea to François Bayrou: to concentrate the negotiation of pensions … on the professions causing professional wear. “We have a small financial room for maneuver with the surpluses linked to the investment fund for prevention of professional wear and tear (Created in 2023, editor’s note) he had considered . For painful professions, if you anticipate and treat the subject in the middle of your career, there are things to do, and we know how to do them. But the current period, marked by budgetary scarcity and political instability, is undoubtedly not the best to advance a subject old more than a century …