Insights

By Mehrez BOUSSAYENE & Chiraz BEN BRAHIM

All Tunisian companies are today impacted by the health crisis linked to Covid-19. To deal with it and mitigate the impact on the economy and the labor market, the Government is intervening by taking emergency measures, particularly social, fiscal and legal.

Decrees have also been promulgated and others are being prepared with the aim of limiting the harmful effects of the health crisis.

For their part, employers and workers will play a vital role in the fight against the pandemic by guaranteeing the safety of people as well as the viability of businesses and jobs.

But the challenge looms large at a time when the employment sector is directly threatened following the total containment measures and other exceptional measures that have been taken.

So what about the role reserved for social partners to get around the crisis?

Security, teleworking and its consequences, partial activity, work stoppage, payment of salaries, taking leave, postponement of deadlines, dismissal and force majeure, these are the main concerns of employers which we will try to answer in this study by deciphering the conditions for recourse to the various mechanisms and devices implemented to deal with this unprecedented situation.  The Covid-19 crisis requires companies to implement preventive and safety measures necessary to preserve the health of their employees (I), and the reorganization of work (II) with the possibility of resorting to temporary unemployment as support measure decided by the government in order to maintain employment (III). It is only by exhausting all solutions, by implementing all measures to maintain contracts and only when the impediment to continuing the activity becomes permanent and definitive that the company could consider terminating the contracts. work due to force majeure (IV). Relaunching activity after deconfinement requires additional efforts on the part of employees and constructive social dialogue (V).