2023-10-08 10:22:47
Although it is struggling to make headway at the political level, menstrual leave is offered to employees in several companies and communities in France. And the results are encouraging.
“No more working in pain, no more taking pills before work trying to hide that we suffer from disabling pain,” exclaimed the Spanish Minister of Equality, Irene Montero on May 17, 2022, presenting a proposal historic law for women. Nearly nine months later, Spain adopted the text and became the first European country to implement menstrual leave. Since then, the idea has crossed the Iberian borders, germinating in the minds of several French parliamentarians from the socialist and environmentalist camps. If the imagined systems vary slightly in form, the three legislative proposals tabled in Parliament in 2023 on the subject demonstrate the ongoing reflection around menstrual leave granted to menstruating employees.
In Spain, “a woman’s stopping work in the event of incapacitating periods” is now “recognized as a special situation of temporary incapacity”. On the other hand, no details appear in the law on the duration of this sick leave, which must be granted by a doctor.
In France, the duration imagined by the sponsors of legislative proposals on the subject varies from two days per month to thirteen days per year. But the idea remains each time to grant leave without deficiency, and therefore without loss of salary, to women suffering from menstrual pain.
One in two women suffer from dysmenorrhea
“Nearly one in two women say they suffer from dysmenorrhea, 20% of them say they have very painful periods,” recalls Hélène Conway-Mouret, the socialist senator at the origin of a bill on the subject tabled last April.
However, the idea is struggling to gain traction in France. Despite the series of legislative proposals tabled on the subject, a senatorial report of the delegation for Women’s Rights, delivered last June, did not come out in favor of a modification of labor law in this direction. The establishment of a broad system for “painful periods” is not justified if a disabling pathology is not associated with it, considered three of the four rapporteurs of the delegation.
For these pathologies, “the response lies in real therapeutic care rather than the establishment of “leave”, they added.
Recognition of a long-term illness (ALD) allows you to benefit from 100% coverage, including sick leave, with no waiting days. But in practice it remains little applied for this type of gynecological diseases. Take the example of endometriosis, which affects around one in ten women and can cause intense menstrual pain.
If it is not included on the list of conditions giving entitlement to an ALD 30, “certain forms of endometriosis can in certain cases fall within the framework of a Long-Term Condition off the list”, specifies the patients’ association. EndoFrance on its site.
But requests made to Health Insurance, under certain specific conditions, have no guarantee of success. Today, women suffering from endometriosis and benefiting from ALD 31 are therefore in the very minority. Not to mention that many women who suffer from pain have not received a diagnosis. Women wait an average of seven years to get a diagnosis of endometriosis.
It therefore remains for people suffering from menstrual pain to take sick leave without specific treatment. But they are then faced with “a double constraint”, deplores Xavier Molinie, the director of Human Resources (HRD) of the software manufacturer Goodays. He underlines “the recurrence of visits to the doctor” for the employees concerned as well as “the financial loss induced by the waiting period which is imposed on employees in most cases”. A reality which sometimes dissuades women from stop working, despite the pain.
Goodays, a pioneering company in this field
However, “forcing women to spend an entire day suffering from stomach aches and all the associated side effects is certainly not the best way to ensure either their health or their well-being at work, and even less so be fulfilled in their professional activity,” denounces Hélène Conway-Mouret.
It is from this same observation that the idea of the company Goodays (formerly known as Critizr) was born to set up such a system for its employees. “We cannot accept that people finding themselves in painful situations must come to work,” believes its HR director.
The software publisher specializing in Customer Experience has therefore decided to grant two days of sick leave per month to women who suffer from menstrual pain. As with all sick leave taken by the company’s employees, no waiting period, and therefore no loss of wages, is applied. Added to this is flexibility in teleworking.
The municipality of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis), under the leadership of its mayor Karim Bouamrane, has decided to grant special leave to women during their menstrual period. Concretely, city officials who suffer from pain during their periods can benefit from a special authorization of absence without a waiting day for two days per month, access to extended teleworking and/or adjustment of their position or their schedules. Since then, other communities have followed suit, or plan to do so, such as the metropolis of Lyon which has been testing a similar system since October 1.
But how can we protect ourselves against the risks of abuse induced by a system like menstrual leave and pointed out by some of its opponents? Goodays chose to evacuate this question by focusing above all on trust.
“We do not ask for any supporting documents from the women concerned,” indicates Xavier Molinie.
As for the city of Saint-Ouen, it asks its agents to provide proof from a doctor to benefit from the special absence authorization.
No abuse noted in the number of appeals
“Of the 840 female agents in the city, 393 of whom are under 45 years old, 23 have reported to occupational medicine for painful periods and benefit from a specific protocol,” specifies the municipality of Saint-Ouen.
Since the implementation of this system for its staff, Goodays management has noted limited use of the system. “Of the 40% of women who make up the company’s 100 employees, five asked to benefit from it, which corresponds approximately to the ratio of 10% of women in the French population who suffer from endometriosis,” notes Xavier Molinie.
He adds that the employees concerned do not take leave every month, and do not necessarily stop for two full days.
However, the HR manager agrees, not all companies can so easily manage these regular absences. “Being a software company offers more flexibility,” he believes.
“The work that cannot be accomplished by the women concerned can easily be made up later or delegated,” he explains.
Another pioneering company in this field, the furniture creator Louis Design, has, for its part, set up a system to anticipate these absences. Women who suffer from period pain can write down the expected days of their period to give an idea of how long they will be unable to work.
In addition to the size of the company, the fragmentation of workplaces, the level of salary and the level of arduousness of the work could also complicate the implementation of such a system.
“We work on a single site and our employees are executives”, recalls Xavier Molinie, before adding: “on smaller salaries, the search for sources of optimization both in time and money can be more important for employees”.
Experiments which provide food for thought, while the legislative proposals tabled earlier this year will attempt to climb onto the parliamentary agenda, in the narrow windows of the niches of the socialist groups and the NUPES.
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