Visa n°144.482
Adrexo : Mail Order Advertisement distribution
Adrexo Corporation... Who are we ?
Adrexo offers simple jobs to everyone.
Retirees, stay-at-home moms, unemployed, students…
You can organize your work days according to your availability,
all the while making extra income.
I become a distributor.
"Matthijs Gardenier and Acronyme Films present"
"After the article “Welcome to the Wonderful World of Mail Order Advertising” by Julien Brygo"
PART-TIME JOB
An Inside Take on Adrexo
Can you see anything ?
"We can be a bit further away if you want..."
Because you’re a little close.
So in your shirt, I unsewed that
and the camera is hidden inside.
So this one is yours...
So it's filming now...
Let me just fix this.
It’s filming.
It's working.
"So we’re proposing an open-ended contract,"
part-time job...
"because we only propose part-time jobs."
"You’ll all have a settled time of work on your worksheet"
"and that length will determine your salary."
"If it says a task is worth 3 hours, you’ll be paid for 3 hours."
The time of work is set there to 3 hours.
"Whether it takes you 2 or 4 hours on the streets,"
"you will be paid the number of hours already written on the sheet,"
"and you should know that you won’t follow the rhythm at first."
You’ll be discovering the area...
"So even if you're paid for 3 hours, you'll probably need 4 hours on the streets."
The established time is your final salary.
I think I’ve gone over everything...
"So we are going to give you all a cart,"
"big or little, depending on the area you will have to cover."
I have two or three questions
since I started two weeks ago.
I worked 16 hours the first week
and 12 hours the second week
"but it says it should only take 5.5 hours."
"So I wanted to know if everything was normal here…"
"We don’t have any say about those things,"
it’s pre-settled by the machine.
"So those rates are based on what the unions signed"
"and we can’t do anything about that."
"The rate is 275 deliveries per hour, right ?"
Yes.
"I'm not wrong when I say that it is impossible to do..."
No, no !
"275 in 3 hours, it is not possible."
"'- If you were Wonder Woman…"
"But I am, somehow, Wonder Woman !"
"It is almost impossible to respect the rate."
So for 2 weeks, I was paid € 132.94
for 14.24 hours of work.
But since I worked 28 hours and 30 minutes
(almost twice the set time)
that makes me an hourly salary of...
(€ 132,94 divided by 28,5 hours)
€ 4.66 per hour.
"I have the feeling that I'm working for free"
and It's quite a lot of extra-work.
No !
"Everything has been written in the collective Labour agreement that we’ve signed."
"This text has settled the rates of ads deliveries in the mailboxes."
"Therefore, we can’t really do anything as it is written in the agreement."
"But according to the Labor Code, you shouldn't work more than what you're paid for..."
"In the Labor Code... well that gets complicated."
"Actually I don’t know if it’s that complicated. On the Ministry of Labor's website,"
"it states that paying for less than the number of hours worked is forbidden by the Law."
"The Labor Code states that the employer must control the number of hours really worked."
"Charles Tremblay Employee of Adrexo Unionist (Sud-PTT)"
"This is something that Adrexo (and its competitors on the market) never do."
"Last year our union has engaged around a hundred court cases regarding these laws"
all of them we won...
"For a total of about € 4 millions in court ordered back pay."
"These were awarded as the amount of time worked was not calculated,"
"so they were reconsidered as full-time jobs, as the Labor Code says."
"Does that mean that all the workers of this sector could go to court ?"
All of them.
Almost all of them...
except those who did not keep the papers.
(a few of them didn't keep them)
"but technically, yes, all of them could go to Labor court."
"That makes around 40,000 people in those 2 companies."
"I got hired after waiting about 2 or 3 months."
"My mission is to distribute 690 Yellow pages."
All day you think in numbers.
36, 36, 42, 63...
Is there a mailbox ?
Did you see the 63 ?
American style !
It's the Yellow pages...
Can you open the door ?
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
"I had around 300 Yellow pages this morning, 330 more or less."
"I have 150 left. So I delivered 180 in 4 hours."
How much does that make an hour ?
About 45 an hour ?
"I deliver 45 per hour, but they’re asking me to do 76."
"So every hour I’m losing about 25, again and again..."
Some more !
You must know that this is illegal.
This surprises me that, in your position,
"how can you accept to pay people less than what they should be ?"
That...
"That doesn't bother you ? - No."
"They pay you the number of hours you work, right ?"
No.
"'- And you don’t say anything?"
I work 60 hours a week.
"And they pay you for how much ? - 35 hours."
And that's not a problem for you ?
Find me another job and I’ll leave.
We will ask the Director of Labor protection inspectors
why he allows this.
General Labour Directorate
General director, Jean-Denis Combrexelle.
01 44 38 25 01.
"'- I called Friday because I’m waiting for a response about an interview ?"
I didn't receive any answer.
You didn't receive anything ?
"I'll try and transfer you to the right office."
Ok.
"(Hello, you are in communication with the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Training, Social Dialog…)"
Jean-Denis Combrexelle refused the interview
about the distribution of advertisements
so I submitted another request as a Sciences-Po student
"regarding an interview with ""a statesman with exceptional experience"""
"who could ""enlighten us with his precise vision of Labor protection""..."
Two days later I received a positive response.
"General Labour Directorate Ministry of Labor"
My name is Jean-Denis Combrexelle,
I’ve been the General Director of Labor since 2001
"which makes me the most senior member of this administration."
"A lot of people are working in the field of advertisements distribution."
I see !
Direct distribution ?
"This is a field where the laws of Labor are often mishandled"
"'- In that field, the number of hours worked are not strictly calculated,"
this is one aspect.
Would it mean that...
The statutory orders are written here.
"'- A priori, that’s illegal ?"
"'- Well, it can be, but... No."
"We must try to create a system that’s legal, while taking into account those field’s constraints."
Actually, when the General Labour Directorate found out
that Adrexo was paying people by task,
they tried to legalize the practice of not calculating the hours of work,
so they published 2 decrees, one in 2007 and one in 2010,
allowing payment by task,
without any control of the real time of work.
Those 2 decrees were logically cancelled by the Council of State,
because refusing to control the hours of workers
would open the door to undeclared work.
"This second decree which legalized this practice, you wrote it here I imagine ?"
Yes, yes.
"Didn’t it bother you that it penalized workers ?"
"No, but this decree about pre-counting the hours,"
"I don't say that this decree is not important, but..."
"things are a little more complex than that."
"The two degrees were indeed cancelled by the State Council"
"and then we discussed it with the social partners,"
"the issue is to find gradually the most adapted system."
So it appears the General Labour Head doesn’t really care
about the conditions of workers.
So I wanted to appeal to Adrexo directly.
So to be sure they agreed to respond to my questions
I told them I was working for the webTV Les Echos,
a part of the of the business newspaper Les Echos,
where they frequently broadcast interviews with famous CEOs.
That’s how we met Matthias Bauland, assistant-CEO of Adrexo.
"Head Office of Spir Communications Owner of Adrexo"
A little clap.
"I am Matthias Bauland, I’m 40, married with 3 kids."
"I had the opportunity at the end of last year"
"to join the Spir Corporation as the leader of Adrexo's network."
"Helping people who have had trouble keeping jobs in the past"
is a long-lasting priority at Adrexo.
"We hire people who are long-term unemployed,"
"who wouldn't have found opportunities elsewhere"
except at Adrexo.
"You have some people who disagree on that point."
"Anything you say can have people who disagree."
"They say you target people in precarious positions"
"because they are the least likely to defend themselves"
No, it’s not at all like that.
"You agree that we don't hire people because of that"
"we hire people because of the energy and the desire to work."
"Does someone who is 80 years old have the energy and desire to work ?"
No, but...
Or someone who is retired ?
In fact, one in four employees at Adrexo is retired.
Here is an example in a report broadcasted by the public television.
The only job that Adrien found at 81 years old,
is the distribution of advertisements.
This morning he has 400 mailboxes to fill.
His shift is hurried as his time is limited.
It’s money on the line !
Adrien is paid a set salary for the job.
This morning he is paid for 2 hours.
But in reality, for 400 mailboxes, he needs twice as much time.
How many mailboxes can you fill every hour ?
90.
They say I should do double.
Adrien has never stopped working.
The great grandfather spends weekends in his garage
sorting advertisements.
A set of ads for each mailbox.
He has 4,000 to sort,
and cannot do it himself.
In the living room, his wife Liliane is not benefiting
from her retirement any more than her husband.
She helps him, without being paid.
"I have no shame in hiring people who are 60 years old,"
"in great shape, and who want to do the work."
"Yesterday, I was talking with a former senior manager working for us,"
"he is full of energy, he wants to do new things and have an activity."
"Not necessarily a lot of hours each week,"
but he takes a lot of pleasure doing it.
"I have done distribution of advertisements myself as well,"
"I mean, we don’t force anyone to work for Adrexo."
No one has ever been...
"On the other hand, Adrexo knows there is a vulnerable workforce"
"looking for any job they can get,"
"as you say, they don’t have any other choice."
So Adrexo can take advantage
of those workers.
"You can’t reproach us for giving jobs."
"No, but we can reproach you for not respecting the Labor Code."
No, we respect the Labour Code.
"The Labor Code prohibits the payment based on a task,"
"and you know it because the Council of State annulled the decree in March 2012."
I find you very accusatory.
Those are the facts.
That's an accusation.
"You’ll broadcast it on Les Echos TV ? - Yes."
We might not use all of this though.
Well that’s reassuring.
Les Echos TV is not usually so accusatory.
"Workers at Adrexo and Mediapost receive an average of 15,000 euros in court cases."
"Most of the 40,000 workers of this sector ignore that they are giving everyday free hours of work to their employer."
Acronyme Films - 2015