CLA and CTT
CLA and CTT
Some employment contracts are in fact subject to mandatory rules deriving either from collective labour agreements (CLAs) or from standard employment contracts (STCs), which are agreements most often concluded between employers' associations and workers' unions. Such agreements may be drawn up for a single company or for an entire economic sector. It is the result of negotiations between the contracting parties and is binding on employers and employees in the sector concerned. In the cleaning sector discussed in these columns a fortnight ago, for example, there is the "CCT pour le secteur du nettoyage en bâtiment pour la Suisse romande" (CCT for the building cleaning sector in French-speaking Switzerland), the terms of which apply to companies that carry out regular or occasional activities in the French-speaking cantons and offer cleaning services on a principal or ancillary basis. However, it does not apply to private individuals who employ cleaning staff on a private basis. Where a branch of the economy does not have a CLA, standard contracts providing for mandatory minimum wages may be drawn up. In effect, this second instrument plays a subsidiary role to the CCTs and serves to fill the gaps in branches where they do not exist. These standard contracts are also binding and can only be derogated from in favour of the employee. However, a distinction must be made between ordinary standard contracts, which are legally binding (and can be derogated from under certain conditions), and those that set mandatory minimum wages, within the meaning of Article 360a of the Swiss Code of Obligations, applicable to all workers in the economic sector concerned. The standard employment contract is therefore not the result of an agreement between employers and employees. It is a normative act issued by the competent cantonal authority (in Geneva, the Chamber of Collective Labour Relations) on the basis of a federal or cantonal legal basis, in order to regulate in a general manner the conclusion, purpose and termination of individual employment contracts in a branch or profession.At the end of the lake, the "Standard employment contract with mandatory minimum wages for the domestic economy" applies to all domestic staff, including workers whose services have been hired out; it sets a minimum wage for the industry of CHF 23.14 gross per hour, or around €4,500 per month if the working week in the industry is 45 hours. In the canton of Vaud, for example, the minimum wage is different, ranging from 18.55 to 22.40 depending on the employee's qualifications, under the Decree establishing a standard employment contract for private household staff.
