Since July 3, more than 90% of Clestra's 140 employees have been onstrike. This company specializing in office partitions inIllkirch-Graffenstaden, south of Strasbourg, was bought by the Jestiagroup in October 2022. Since then, employees have seen their workingconditions deteriorate and between 25% to 30% employees left thecompany. ---- The buyout took place in October 2022 following thejudicial recovery of Clestra and was subsidized to the tune of fivemillion euros by the state and the region, without request forguarantees. On the picket line, the workers tell us: "after the takeoverby Jestia, tensions quickly appeared when they wanted to take away ourassets, bonuses, etc. ". This triggers a first strike in December 2022for 15 days, which resulted in a monthly increase of 65 euros net, aswell as the maintenance of annual bonuses over three years.Untenable working conditionsBut the situation continues to deteriorate: increased production rates,layoffs, and union repression, which will trigger a second strike onJuly 3. "The straw that broke the camel's back was the unfair dismissalof a colleague, overnight, by email on a Sunday morning.» For theemployees, management is clearly seeking to sanction the unionists:"They want to break unionism. They even sanctioned a union delegate: forbringing one of his sons back to the workshop, he received three days'layoff." Two months before, the new management had proposed a collectivetermination agreement which could concern 40 employees. Between layoffsand departures caused by the deterioration of working conditions, thenumber of employees has fallen from 283 to 140 people since the start ofthe conflict.For employees, the question of the future of the company is alsocentral, particularly following a plan to move the site: "we wanttransparency: the new premises are three times smaller than the previousones, not You need to be a genius to see bad news coming." They alsopoint out the operations of Jestia, which lays off workers afterreceiving subsidies, a logic which the group is accustomed to: "theywant to dismantle the company, they have already done it with others,this time they fell on a bone, that's all." The generalization of thesepractices also worries some workers on a broader scale: "I fight for mychildren, I don't give a damn, my life is behind me, but what will mychildren be like tomorrow?» The strike has been going on for almostthree months, with the feeling of not being listened to: "It took twoand a half months of strike to just start a little dialogue, it wasunblocked following the arrival of Sophie Binet" , the CGT being themain organizer of the strike. "Morale is still good but it's starting totake a long time, especially financially."The arrival of Sophie Binet made it possible to initiate the dialoguethat the strikers had wanted for two and a half months.Contempt for the state and managementNegotiations took place at the Ministry of Industry on September 5 and20 in the presence of Jestia shareholders and a union delegation fromClestra. But these round tables produced nothing; despite the fivemillion in aid to buyers, the State does not seem to do anything forClestra employees who are still worried about their jobs. On September21, strikers spoke during a support evening in Strasbourg: "We werereceived at the prefecture, at the region and yesterday we were atBercy. They are there and listen, take notes. We said to ourselves thatthe ministry was going to bang on the table but nothing, it's totalcontempt." While Jestia begins to brandish the threat of "imminentbankruptcy", the employees have announced that they will maintain theirstrike. A sign of a struggle that goes beyond Clestra, one of themdeclared at the end of the evening: "I see a lot of young people here,for the future be vigilant, and above all be united with each other."Antoine and N. Bartosek (UCL Alsace)To support the struggle, the strike fund link:www.leetchi.com/fr/c/greve-des-clestra-1728721https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Clestra-Face-aux-cloisons-de-la-bourgeoisie-faire-greve_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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