A comité d'entreprise (or employer's committee) is a legal requirement for all French companies, and company sites with more than fifty staff. The committee is composed of the head of the company, or a representative, and two other management nominees. The rest of the committee is made up of elected staff representatives and nominees from the representative union at the site.
The committee is givenbetween 0.5 and 5% (average 2%) of the company's salary costs. Generally the committee is in charge of organising social events for the workers, such as company picnics or christmas parties. They are also involved in negotiating benefits such as subsidised canteens, employee discounts and discounts with neighbouring businesses. They may also provide services to workers such as vending machines.
The company is also legally obliged to inform the committee of any planned changes to working patterns, conditions and shifts and also of any redundancies. The role of the committee is often limited when it comes to industrial action, especially when several unions are present at the site as usually only the representative union (usually the one with a majority of workers) will have seats on it.
