RTE widens volunteer off-hours and on-call recognition deal

RTE revises its October 2024 recognition agreementLegifrance to extend paid recognition for volunteers who adapt their hoursLegifrance, covering programmed off-hours operationsLegifrance and a new exceptional on-call regimeLegifrance. Signed at La Défense on 30 October 2026Legifrance, the amendment rewrites the preamble of Article 4 and points 4.1 and 4.2; all other terms of the 10 October 2024 Accord Reconnaissance stay in force.

Programmed operations outside normal hours may use volunteers, with financial recognition, at weekends, on public holidays, and outside weekday normal hours as defined in the establishment working-time agreementsLegifrance. The weekend runs from the usual end of work before it to the usual start after it, including adjacent holidays. RTE cites its public-service constraints as transmission-system operator and the development of its subsidiaries in continental France.

Covered operations are listed by team: network work by Maintenance, DPT, DPMI and DT including STH (urgent post-fault repairs, short-notice maintenance forced by customer constraints, scheduled work under contractual or third-party constraints, system-safety work preventing a fault); DSIT including CORS-N (IT, telecom and cyber incident resolution and high-impact service-loss operations); and subsidiary missions in continental France (complex helicopter maintenance for AIRTELIS, hard-to-subcontract maintenance on RTE-like equipment for CIRTEUS). Before any off-hours scheduling, the entities concerned must check whether the job can be done in normal hours; only then does the centre director validate it.

Exceptional on-call covers one-off situations needing volunteers whose jobs carry no standing on-call duty and who hold specific network-safety skills. Three families are named: foreseeable one-off weather events such as fire, flood and storm risks; internal technical events such as supporting a new network-related IT tool; and external events such as a head-of-state visit or a major sporting or cultural event.

Weather on-call is created by the agreement itselfLegifrance, with organisation, notice and compensation in Annex 1 under article L.3121-11 du Code du travail. The other two families are created by company decision under article L.3121-12, after consultation of the central CSE alone for company-level decisions without local adaptations, with the opinion forwarded to the establishment CSEs concerned; establishment CSEs alone for local decisions; both where a company decision carries local adaptations. Each decision states staff categories and numbers, duration, on-call type and organisation. Interventions are paid and uplifted under article 16 of the IEG national status for non-forfait-jours staff; forfait-jours volunteers called at weekends or holidays count a half day up to four hours and a full day beyond, plus an extra half or full rest day for Sunday or holiday call-outs. All receive the regulatory on-call indemnity.

The weather annex caps each volunteer's exceptional on-call at seven consecutive days with guaranteed weekly restLegifrance, generally outside working hours, sized between 2 and 50 volunteersLegifrance. Triggers are Météo-France orange or red alerts, declared black fire risk or flood alerts, or RTE-identified situations missed or late-flagged by Météo-France. The national or regional duty officer decides activation; establishment HR informs the establishment CSEs and union delegates within seven calendar days.

Entry into force is the day after filing; the text is notified to the representative unions and filed via TéléAccords and with the competent conseil de prud'hommes, with anonymised publication in the national database.

Legal basis: Avenant n°1 à l'accord Reconnaissance du 10 octobre 2024Legifrance, articles L.3121-9, L.3121-11, L.3121-12, L.2316-1, L.2231-6, L.2231-5-1 et D.2231-2 et suivants du Code du travail.