WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #345 - Unionism, Montpellier University Hospital: ONET, an 80-day strike ! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last Friday, December 1 ,  ONET employees who had been on strike for 80
days signed an agreement with their management. 80 days of strike is
just huge  ! Everyone was able to gain important experience to
disseminate to prepare and nourish all of tomorrow's struggles. ---- The
situation in the cleaning sector is catastrophic and symbolic of the
professions mainly occupied by women (80%), often from immigrant
backgrounds  [ 1 ] , many raising their children alone. These workers,
on the front line during the COVID crisis, remain above all the
representatives of modern slavery from which everyone benefits.

When we clean the public hospital, even if subcontracted, we work for
the well-being and health security of an entire society.

This fundamental social utility is invisible, devalued, underpaid. The
working conditions in the sector can be summed up by infernal speeds,
low salaries (600 euros, this is the average net salary of these
employees), imposed part-time work (80%), the multiplication of
fixed-term contracts, to which Added to this is increased surveillance
of employees and very aggressive management. Night work, repetitive
actions, exposure to harmful and carcinogenic products, the
repercussions of these jobs on the health of the women who occupy them
are still largely unknown and minimized.

Anger can be organized, and struggle can be sustained
In Montpellier, the trigger for the strike at the CHU, in addition to
the demands for an increase in salaries and a bonus equivalent to a
thirteenth month, is the refusal to be imposed, without any consultation
and training, a telephone tracking device . The arrival of this new form
of policing has crystallized a general fed up around working rates and
conditions. In addition to controlling their time spent in each room,
bosses then control the quality of work that is impossible to complete
in the allotted time1.

For 80 days, every morning, a strike picket of ONET employees was set up
in front of Lapeyronie hospital. More than half of the staff at the
Montpellier agency joined the movement. The first objective was to be
visible, publicized and supported: leaflets around the CHU, support
gathering on the picket, participation in other demonstrations of the
social movement (September 23, October 13, November 25), in actions and
support evenings. The second objective was to attempt an extension of
the strike by gathering in front of the regional management of the SNCF
to put pressure on another of the sites of the same group, and to put
the employees on strike.

Poster of the Onet striker support event
Union, support committee and strike fund
The union delegates largely participated in leading the strike, but
every day, it was on the picket or in general meetings that decisions
were taken and the distribution of tasks was recorded.

To support the struggle, there was the union, the support committee and
the strike fund to hold out as long as possible  [ 2 ] . This combo has
proven to be very effective. Supported mainly by the CGT of the CHU and
the Local Union, the union fulfilled its interprofessional role through
financial support, and moral, material and strategic support.

But the originality and exemplarity of this struggle were also played
out around the presence of a large, very active support committee, of
around 80 people, which organized multiple actions to also replenish the
strike fund  [ 3 ] . The daily presence of unionists and supporters on
the pickets also allowed the strikers to hold out over time.

A struggle full of hope
Even if all their demands were not met, at the end of the 80 days of
strike, the agreement reached significantly limited the impact of the
tracking system denounced and an exceptional bonus of 650 euros was
snatched. Other struggles will have to take place to perpetuate it.
Whether we see the glass half empty or half full, the struggle has above
all allowed the creation of a real work collective. Workers, scattered
across several CHU sites, met and built the struggle together. The
strikers helped create connections within the union and beyond the union.

Onet employees wandering around the University Hospital
Newspaper photo Le Poing
An exemplary struggle for dignity
Uniting around your struggle makes you proud, creating a solidarity
movement makes you dignified, and making yourself visible makes you
strong. These strikers say today that they are in solidarity with the
struggles of other women who work for low wages and who are also
invisible and despised.

This incredible experience a few months ago prepares the rest of their
internal struggles but also brings hope for the struggles to come,
particularly in feminized sectors. Discussions with the ONET strikers
and their supporters clearly show that there is a great awareness today
of the similarities in all these professions mainly occupied by women.

Cleaning, serving, caring for, educating are part of the same
patriarchal logic.  Considered as “ natural ” functions  carried out for
free in the domestic context by women, these activities are despised,
underpaid and devalued.

Perhaps next March 8 could have the ambition to unite employees in these
feminized sectors who find themselves facing the same problems:
precariousness, often deplorable working conditions and salaries, loss
of meaning, managerial brutality or institutional violence.

Anne (UCL Montpellier)

To validate

[ 1 ]  See also the various strikes which have punctuated the sector
over the last 15 years, and the reports which followed. A spotlight was
placed on the salary, social and human ignominy organized by the
cleaning giants, as well as on the complicity of large public service
companies (CHU, SNCF, RATP, etc.).

[ 2 ]  The strike fund collected more than 20,000 euros out of the
50,000 euros of unaffected wages.

[ 3 ]  The collective was created by Révolution Permanente and joined by
numerous collectives and political parties. The strikers also benefited
from the support of Ruffin and Rachel Keke, LFI deputy and former
spokesperson for the strike of maids at the Ibis Batignolles hotel.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?CHU-de-Montpellier-ONET-un-mouvement-de-greve-de-80-jours
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