A first step into the world of work that can turn into a real tripper for work-study students “disgusted with the professional world”. Lea* is 26 years old. The tall brunette, posed in her Docs, has seen all the colors during her summer student jobs. “But nothing to do with my alternation “, she warns. The Design student in Toulouse was offered a great opportunity with an “open and friendly” team, as she explains, before becoming completely disappointed. “I quickly understood that I was there to occupy a position in the same way as the other CDIs. My tutor and my bosses gave me work, were never satisfied, but taught me nothing. Of course, I’m not at the same level as someone with a 20-year career”.
Months pass and Léa begins to experience hell: “Always inappropriate remarks. Always bashing me when they weren’t ignoring me. It had become a nightmare. I knew, in addition that they were on purpose to push me to the end so that I leave on my own because I was unbeatable. All because they felt they were paying me enough to do other people’s jobs. You have to see the salary of an alternating anyway and the help they have behind! “, annoys the young Toulouse. This state aid can go up to 6,000 euros per year and per work-study student. The latter receives an average salary ranging from 800 to 1,000 euros between 18 and 25 years old.
Today Léa is serene, alternating elsewhere, far from her former bosses, but the bad dream will have lasted one and ended with a sick leave for depression. “The doctor put me on an antidepressant. I couldn’t think about work without crying… It really disgusted me”. And she is not a special case.
“It’s a windfall effect because of state aid. That these contracts are misused does not surprise me, ”says Cécile Villard, a lawyer specializing in labor law in Toulouse. “The company must be in the perspective of training. A business manager does not have the right to consider an alternate as a normal employee. You cannot hire a work-study student or even take on an intern to replace an employee. We are in the wrong at that time, ”adds the lawyer.
“I became a referent while I was paid 850 euros”
Occupy the position of a lambda employee? Daily life for Marie, a web user from 20 minutes. After two months, the student no longer had a supervisor. After six months, “I was asked to resume part of a service to replace a long-term sick leave. I was able to perform 90% of the tasks that my colleagues performed. I even became a referent for a whole type of product creation when I only had a few months of experience,” she explains. A gain in experience, certainly, but no gain for the wallet. This “referent” – a safe bet for the company – was paid 850 euros per month. From the height of her 24 years and after two years of experience, Marie questions herself: “Better supervision, better remuneration…? It is clear that all the dissatisfaction linked to work-study training is only the result of these policies which want to put young people into work as quickly as possible and into the service of companies at a derisory cost. The real question is until when will this be accepted? »
Legal aid for those “who do not have the means”
Until we talk about it maybe. “The more the labor inspectorate will be alerted, the more it will watch what is happening”, underlines Cécile Villard. “Don’t be afraid to hire a lawyer either. Some already have legal protection. And for those who do not have the means, you should know that there is legal aid,” advises the specialist who has already been able to help young people with this type of case.
Julien for his part preferred to throw in the towel before it went too far. The marketing student played “the trainers for the trainees when no one [l]’had never trained before’. “I’m pretty independent and it didn’t bother me that much,” he says. But seeing my chefs leave for an aperitif when I had to stay working late for the little that I earned, I hallucinated. I was really their slave 2.0”, testifies the new young dynamic executive. “When I presented them with a fait accompli, they clearly showed me that I had no say in it because I was ‘just a little work-study student’ and that I had to go elsewhere if that didn’t bother me. did not like. That’s what I did,” he replies. Today on a permanent contract in a large box, Julien believes that “this plunge into the deep end was not necessary. It was too big a slap to be so despised. I was not a special case in my school, and it often happened in small companies and start-ups. We used work-study programs to make money on them. I still don’t understand how we can still let this pass, “he argues, promising himself that he will never behave like this” with the little young people.
* The first name has been changed