Commuter allowance: Is carpooling a means of public transport?

A collective agreement may define a long-distance journey as the possibility or otherwise of the employee returning home each evening, depending on the public transport available. In this case, these means of transport do not include carpooling.

Hired on January 8, 2006 as a plaster painter, the employee applied to the Labor Council on May 6, 2013 for a recall of long-term travel allowances.

On appeal, the court ruled in favor of the employee. The employer then refers the matter to the Court of Cassation on the ground that the building collective agreement applicable in the company defines large-scale movement as the position of the worker who works on a construction site whose remoteness prevents him, in view of the available means of public transport, from returning home each evening.

He considers that carpooling is indeed a public transport, depriving the employee of an allowance for long journeys. Indeed, carpooling allows the employee to go home every night.

The Court of Cassation disagrees and upholds the Court of Appeal's ruling. It considers that the legal definition of carpooling does not meet the definition of public transport. According to the text referred to, the movement is carried out on the driver's own account. It cannot therefore be considered as 

available public transport

.

Therefore, in the absence of a real transit solution, the long-haul allowance is due.