In the silence of the collective agreement, do the sales representatives benefit from the conventional severance pay?

In the absence of precision in the collective agreement, is the conventional severance pay due to the VRP?

Two employees, exercising the functions of sales rep, had been dismissed for economic reasons as part of a job protection plan (PSE). They had seized the labor court to challenge the validity of their dismissal and obtain payment of various sums, in particular as additional contractual severance pay.

The additional conventional severance pay claimed was that provided for by the collective agreement for advertising and similar. Despite their status as sales reps, the employees felt that they benefited from the provisions of this collective agreement, applicable to the company for which they worked.

But the first judges had estimated:

on the one hand that the VRP collective agreement is binding on employment contracts concluded between employers and sales representatives, except for more favorable contractual provisions expressly applicable to sales representatives; on the other hand that the collective agreement for advertising does not provide for its applicability to representatives having the status of sales rep.

Consequently, the judges had considered that it was the collective agreement of the VRP which applied to the employment relationship.

They had therefore dismissed the employees ...