Rest and leave

Employees who are working on board ships registered under the French flag with the RIF benefit from a leave and rest regime.

Weekly rest on board

All seafarers are entitled to a day’s rest on board, in accordance with art. L. 3132-1 of the French Labor Code: "It is forbidden to have the same employee work more than 6 days a week".

Art. L. 5544-17, Transport Code : "One weekly rest day means 24 consecutive hours of rest, counted from the normal time when the seaman takes duty."

Art. L. 5544-19, Transport Code : "Any work carried out during the weekly rest day suspends the effect, unless it results from unforeseen circumstances and its duration does not exceed two hours."

Art. L. 5544-13, Transport Code : "The master may require the seafarer to work such hours as are necessary for the immediate safety of the ship, persons on board or cargo, or to assist other ships or persons in distress at sea.
In such cases, the master may suspend the usual organization of work or rest schedules and require a seafarer to work for the time necessary to deal with these circumstances.
Once these circumstances have ceased, the captain will give the seafarer who has performed such work while on rest an equivalent rest period. The conditions under which this rest is taken take into account safety requirements and the needs of navigation."

Art. L. 5544-20, Transport Code : "Work required for the following purposes shall not be considered to infringe the weekly rest period rule:

• "force majeure" circumstances;
• circumstances in which the salvation of the ship, persons on board or cargo is at stake, circumstances of which the captain is the sole judge;
• assistance operations.
  Any weekly rest not taken is compensated in accordance with the conditions set out in the last paragraph of article L. 5544-13."

Apart from circumstances linked to safety at sea, the organization of weekly rest periods is strictly governed by the French Transport Code.

Art. L. 5544-18, Transport Code : "To take account of the constraints specific to maritime activities, a collective agreement, company or establishment agreement may provide for the weekly rest period referred to in article L. 3132-3 of the French Labor Code:

If the weekly rest period is deferred, the agreement provides for compensatory measures and specifies the maximum period within which it must be taken.
In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement, the employer determines which of these arrangements he chooses, with reference to custom and after consulting the works council and on-board delegates, if any. The employer informs the labour inspector mentioned in article L. 8112-1 of the French Labour Code.."

For employees on board transport and maritime services ships

The weekly rest provided by the Labour code is adapted by the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) of November 19, 2012 for officers at sea in transport and maritime services companies

Art. 5.5.3 : "The mandatory weekly rest is in principle granted on Sundays. However, in accordance with the Transport Code (3) and taking into account the particularities of maritime professions, weekly rest not taken may be postponed. As such, for 30 calendar days of actual time onboard, the officer can benefit on average from 4.33 days of compensation for the weekly rest that has been worked. When compensated, the weekly rest is integrated into the leave rest rate defined in Article 5.5.8."

Leave

Art. L. 5544-23, Transport Code : "The seaman right to paid leave is calculated at the rate of 3 calendar days per month. The time spent as waiting for repatriation and the duration of the journey cannot be deducted from the paid leave as earned by the seaman.."

Non-working and public holidays

May 1st, Labour day: the only non-working day in France

May 1st, Labour Day, is the only legally non-working day in France. In other words, any employee working on board a ship registered under the French flag with the RIF shall be paid for that day, while being a rest day.

In accordance with Article L. 3133-6 of the Labour Code, in cases where the employee’s activity was performed on non-working May 1st (for example due to the ship operation), the employer shall pay "in addition to the salary corresponding to the work performed, an indemnity equal to the amount of this salary". In other words, a seafarer is paid twice for working on a non-working day, on May 1.

Public holidays on board ships flying the French flag

The holidays legally designated as public holidays are not specific to the RIF legal framework. They are listed in Article L. 3133-1 of the Labour Code and apply to all workers in France.

Among these days designated as public holidays, May 1 is special as being legally a non-working day (hence the compensation when this is not the case in reality).

"Ordinary" public holidays are non-working days only if it is provided for by a CBA or, failing that, by the employment contract.

Articulation between public holidays and weekly rest on board

While the Transport Code provides that seafarers on board a ship under the French flag benefit from one day of rest per 7-day period (art. L. 5544-17, Transport Code), it could coincide with a public holiday.

However, in such a case, the weekly rest is considered acquired if it takes place at the time of a public holiday or non-working day. In other words, an employee cannot take advantage of the calendar coincidence between a public holiday/non-working day and the weekly rest day to obtain additional leave.

In practice:

• May 1st not coinciding with the weekly rest day on board but worked on that day: the day must be paid double;
• other public holidays coinciding with the weekly rest day: the weekly rest is deemed acquired, the seafarer cannot claim for a later postponement;
• public holidays during the period on board but not coinciding with the weekly rest days: regardless of the number of public holidays in question (1, 2, 3, etc.), the seafarer is entitled to 1 compensatory day of rest per 30-day period. This is rule 5.5.5 in the collective agreement of November 19, 2012 for officers at sea in transport and maritime services companies.
  • this rule does not apply to seafarer in commercial yachting activity, since they are not covered by the said CBA.

Global rate of rest-leave

Art. L. 5544-23-1, Transport Code : "An agreement or an extended collective branch agreement may provide for consolidating the seaman legal and conventional leave rights with other legal and conventional compensatory rest over a reference period which cannot exceed one year. The convention or the collective agreement setting up this system is called "rest-leave" and specifies how to implement it.."

Global rate of rest-leave for employees in the transport and maritime services sectors

In accordance with the Transport Code, a system of "global rate of rest-leave" is provided for by the CBA of November 19, 2012 for officers at sea in transport and maritime services companies

Art. 5.5.8 : "calculation of the leave rate which includes paid leave and compensation for weekly rest, holidays and overtime hours if they are unpaid or lump sum. This rate takes into account the legal duration of the work and the operating conditions of the ship."

So, this ratio is:

• partly imposed by regulations and collective bargaining (in particular due to the fact that 1 month on board entitles to a minimum of 3 days of leave, that on average 4.33 days of weekly rest per month are allocated, etc.);
• partly based on the employer decision, since the aforementioned collective agreement clearly stipulates that the operating conditions of the vessel may impact this rate.

N.B. : the RIF Office does not provide advice to employers on the calculation of the global rest-leave rate as retained by a maritime employment agency. This is a measure strictly decided internally by the private entity.

Global rate of rest-leave for employees in the yachting sector

Yachting employees are not affected by the global rest-leave rate scheme, since there are no CBA in this sector.