Testimonies of undocumented workers ---- The following two interviews
were conducted by the "L'actualité des luttes" team on Fréquence ParisPlurielle. They provide a stark insight into the situation of
overexploitation experienced by undocumented workers. It is important to
understand that the hunt for undocumented workers, which seems to be the
be-all and end-all of government policy for some time now, does not have
as its primary objective the expulsion of as many undocumented workers
as possible from the country. The primary goal, by increasing the
pressure they are under, is to force them to accept conditions close to
slavery. The aim here is to reproduce the conditions of exploitation in
the poorest developing countries. In the process, this allows for the
designation of a scapegoat and saves on transportation costs. All
benefits, then.
This can be verified on the issue of "jobs in shortage," which allows
for regularizations. A list by region was published by the Ministry. We
see that these are mainly very specific qualifications. However, we do
not find cleaning or logistics, sectors that are nevertheless large
users of undocumented labor. This is because just as SME owners who lack
qualified labor are requesting regularizations to be able to hire, the
cleaning and logistics sectors need very cheap labor in order to reduce
costs. Both in the sectors in question to resist competition, and in the
interest of industry and services in general because these are
obligatory costs (cleaning and distribution must be done) that must be
compressed.
Interview with undocumented employees formerly NTI
Last April, the struggle news team [1]went to the Gennevilliers labor
exchange to meet former NTI employees from 2019 to 2023. NTI, a sorting
and cleaning subcontracting company, was placed in receivership two
years ago, but the former employees are now targeting the contractors.
All of them have decided to take NTI to the labor court, as well as the
subsidiaries of Veolia, Suez, Paprec and Urbaser, where they were
assigned...
History
On August 28, 2023, eight men and three women occupied the XVEO Veolia
sorting center in Paris. Originally from Morocco or Algeria, they had
been working in sorting centers in the Paris region since 2019. At the
beginning of 2023, following labor inspections, NTI stopped giving them
work. The company's managers put the company into receivership to avoid
sanctions, inspections, and monitoring, and some of its managers have
since founded AR Environnement. The employees are claiming damages for
discrimination, undeclared work, and challenging the termination of
their employment contracts. In addition, they are requesting permanent
employment in one of the subsidiaries and regularization of their
employment, a promise made by NTI.
They were granted an initial hearing on November 8, 2023, at the
Conciliation and Guidance Office (BCO) of the Paris Labor Court to sue
NTI, as well as Veolia, Suez, Paprec, and Urbaser. In the meantime,
Veolia has kept its promises to hire these employees once their
situation has been clarified by the prefecture. Initially scheduled for
November 24, 2024, the next hearing has been postponed to September 26,
2025.
Working conditions
Nadia from the show "L'actualité des luttes": "NTI generally employs
vulnerable people, men in precarious situations or women who are raising
their children alone or are pregnant, which forces them to work in
conditions that no one would accept with papers."
Ischam : "I worked from 2017 to May 2021 without a contract, without
leave, or training, in the furnaces and in the incineration plants. I
was paid 60 euros a day and 80 euros a night."
Anasse : "I've been working for a year and a half without a contract
with NTI, even during Covid. Then I got a "permanent contract at the end
of the construction site," which doesn't exist. I do the work that the
hired workers don't want to do. My overtime is stolen and I'm not paid,
and to be hired back the following week, I have to give a certain amount
to the team leader. Sometimes I work nights until 4 a.m. and go to
another site from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. I can't refuse, otherwise they
tell me to get lost, and I have a family to support back home. I've had
two work accidents, one with Veolia, while doing maintenance, I fell 2
meters, the other at Paprec, I was made to clean under a sorting belt,
which is prohibited. No protection, no safety shoes, nothing is provided
by the employer. We take the protective equipment we find in the
companies where we work and which belongs to other employees." He is
Algerian and his boss tells him that he doesn't like Algerians. He
prefers Moroccans.
Nadia : "This is reminiscent of the 1970s when bosses would go and find
workers directly in their villages in Morocco, because Moroccans were
supposed to be more docile."
It took one a year, the other six months to arrive in France, passing
through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Austria,
and Italy on foot through the woods, sometimes assaulted by border police.
Y. was hired at NTI, where he is paid in cash, with no pay slips, no
social security, no insurance, and no paid leave. "The work is really
hard and the environment is dirty and unsafe. I am asked to drive
machinery even though I don't have a license."
M .: "I was hired in 2018 at EPS, then in 2019 at NTI with the same
bosses, in dangerous work paid 700 euros per month in an envelope, and
the site manager takes up to 100 euros so that he can take you back the
following week. Then I was moved to Carrière sur Seine, Meaux, Moulin. I
finally got a work contract, in 2021 with Paprec."
Nadia : "Why do these companies change their names all the time?"
Ali , CGT representative at Veolia: "In fact, EPS is a company covered
by the collective agreement for cleaning and auxiliary activities; it
still exists. It handles subcontracting, for example, dock and
maintenance workers, which is not the core business of an incinerator.
The other employees and other companies are affiliated with the waste
activities collective or with the Fedem and energy collective. To
respond to calls for tender, EPS was behind the creation of NTI. To
specialize in waste, it created NTI Collect, then when it was criticized
in the media, it created AER-Environnement. These are strategies of
changing every two years. So the employees are paid by "taxi companies."
Nadia : "We've had reports of phone calls telling employees to keep
working even though they've been working nights. It's ad hoc management,
with no idea whether they're going to be working or not, so people are
being forced to do whatever they want."
Ali : "It's true that they were working 24/7 under the conventional
on-call framework. Except that even the on-call framework doesn't allow
for 24/7 work. They weren't even registered, so we're not dealing with
on-call considerations. This flexibility at work comes at a price. These
are very specific conditions that aren't allowed for all trades. On-call
work is very structured. They were paid below traditional social
security levels for standard working hours."
Nadia : "There are these on-call duties, the very low hourly rates, and
the fact that employers don't pay social security contributions.
Employers want to extend this to all workers, whether they have papers
or not. But they're already doing it with undocumented workers; they're
flouting collective agreements and workers' rights. No social security,
no sick leave; it's slavery."
Ali : "We are currently counting the number of undocumented workers who
work indirectly for the State or Local Authorities through household
waste treatment obligations. The difficulty in counting comes from the
fact that some are in public service, others are under public service
delegation in the companies mentioned and among the private operators,
some subcontract part of their activity that we consider to be "core
business". This is why we are taking legal action for the offense of
trafficking. In fact, subcontracting is not used for ancillary
activities, gardening, or a one-off activity... The purpose of sorting
centers is to sort, carry out maintenance and upkeep and the employees
were employed for this activity."
The humiliations
Y: "We endured poor working conditions and humiliations. We are human
beings, we aspire to dignity. When we come to work without gloves or
masks, we are sent away. The company provides them with nothing. I found
the helmet I'm wearing in a trash can."
L : "I worked at NTI from 2018 to 2021 without a contract, insurance, or
vacation. I combined night and day work. I sometimes had the opportunity
to be on the sorting belts with employees hired by Veolia. If there was
a technical problem, the employees waited for it to be resolved, but we
were always sent to clean up elsewhere. When there were only NTI
employees at night with Veolia, the belt turned faster. We sorted 75
tons in 5 hours at night, while they only sorted 40 tons during the day.
We were called at all hours, sometimes 2 a.m. to clean up when the
machines stopped."
B: "The boss asked me to bring a fake paper to declare myself. All the
managers of Veolia companies, etc., know that we don't have papers. But
they maintain relationships and receive gifts from the heads of NTI and
act as if they don't know anything. Once in 2021, we were working
Saturday mornings. They called us, 16 people, to work until midnight,
and the next day, Sunday, some still worked all day. Finding workers
like that is impossible on Saturdays and Sundays, and especially not
paid very well."
Accommodation
A. pays 770 euros for 16 m².
Ali: "Between 2009 and 2015, most of them lived in shelters. After the
first strike and the victory, they were supported in rehousing. Those
who were regularized in 2023 were able to denounce the slum landlords
who housed them. Then the situation reversed; their landlords found
themselves in a vulnerable situation with respect to the law and changed
the locks on the apartments. So some find themselves on the street.
Which was not the case during the first strike. There were three initial
demands: hiring, papers, and recognition of the damage and its
compensation. Then came demands regarding housing, salary, and working
conditions."
Women
Hind, an Algerian woman who was hired at NTI in 2019, says she worked
for three and a half years. While eight months pregnant, she continued
to work, even at night. "I didn't even have a job contract. I wasn't
entitled to paid vacation, meal vouchers, or maternity leave. I stopped
sorting waste when I was eight months pregnant. It was very dangerous
for the baby with all the dirt I was breathing in." "I also cleaned at
the team leader's house. Since he was always behind me telling me what
to do, I quit." Between four and ten women work on the sorting belt.
It's often single women with children who are forced to accept these
degrading working conditions. Ali: "For our female colleagues, in
addition to being undocumented, they also have to be women." Since we're
in very male-dominated collectives, it's not easy to get women to speak
out on these issues. Parental leave isn't respected. Employing pregnant
women up to 8 months, day and night, is illegal. This increases the risk
of workplace accidents. And what also struck me was the management
style: "He came to tell me what to do behind my back," Hind reports.
Work instructions, when there's a relationship of subordination, must be
given face to face, in our eyes or in writing, but not behind our backs.
At NTI, the conditions were right for managing female employees behind
their backs, for asking them to clean the managers' personal homes.
We've had testimonies of recruitment based on beauty criteria, so the
environment was conducive to sexual assault. This illustrates violent,
sexist management, which can potentially lead to sexual assault. Women
faced a challenge that men didn't face during the strike. When the CGT
helped them with the administrative regularization process, they had to
choose between regularization through family or work. And it wasn't easy
for any of them.
After the strike
Nadia : "It was following an initial complaint from you that a second
group of people went to the labor court. Can you tell us about this
first strike to denounce these working conditions?"
Ismaël : "I was hired by EPS, which became NTI, then AR Environnement.
After the complaint, there was no more work. We held meetings from March
to the end of August 2023, then the strike."
Ali : "The trigger for a labor inspection is a workplace accident that
went unreported and was tried to be covered up. Even without papers, you
can report a workplace accident. Ismaël alerted the labor inspectorate
and the CGT union simultaneously. But he was kept out of work. The
contractors hid evidence from the labor inspectorate and tried to get
rid of the employees. But the latter met at labor exchanges to organize
and investigate these undocumented workers who work for the State and
local authorities. After the strike, we won promises of employment from
Veolia with an employment contract, pay slips, and vacation time, the
receipt, a residence permit, which allows you to work. Two maintenance
workers, four or five sorters, one infrastructure worker, and one bridge
operator (on an overhead crane), a job in demand requiring a diploma
(CACESS), were hired. They have developed a number of skills in
high-demand occupations. They are not currently included in the list of
high-demand occupations in the Île-de-France region in the new
immigration bill. They have earned their dignity, but also a taste for
collective struggle and strikes.
M: "I'm a maintenance worker, but I'm being asked to be a machine
operator. So even with papers, we're still forced to work. Working
conditions have improved, but I had a work accident, and now I'm on sick
leave. We're still taking legal action. The managers are telling us that
what we did to Veolia and other companies isn't good, and they're
putting pressure on the employees."
Nadia : "We saw that first struggle. You are part of the second wave and
you reacted to the word dignity."
H: "They struggled for 3 years working like slaves and then they got a
contract and health insurance like all employees."
Fatima joins us with her son. She was one of the 11 strikers on August
28, 2023. She now works as a sorter at Veolia. "With the strike, we won
better working conditions, employment contracts, and papers. It's not
like before, when we worked like slaves."
L : "I'm working with NTI until 2021, then on a permanent contract until
August 2023. I'm committed to fighting for my dignity. The March 2025
industrial tribunal summons was postponed until September. The first
group obtained papers that allow them to have better working and living
conditions."
Most of them have not worked since this second complaint because the
company filed for bankruptcy. But all remain mobilized. They feel like
second-class citizens. They expect a lot from this procedure to regain
their dignity.
L: "I have to take out loans from friends to pay the rent. I'm brave
enough to work, but when I'm hired on the market from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m.
for 20 euros, it's not right. When you don't have a job and no papers,
you're nothing at all, not even a man, not even a machine. We avoid
work, we avoid going to Paris so as not to be arrested by the police."
H : "In November 2023, we filed a lawsuit with the industrial tribunal,
but the first hearing scheduled for November has been postponed until
March 2024 because the companies are not responding in a timely manner;
they're doing this on purpose."
Nadia : "Today's bosses are giving themselves the means, through
outsourcing, hiring undocumented workers, and changing their company
names, to deny the rights that workers, whether documented or
undocumented, have won through struggle. There are hyper-repressive,
hyper-security laws that blame foreigners for all the evils. And what's
more, they exploit them in a shameful way."
H : "They take advantage of us foreigners, especially those in an
irregular situation. The bosses are still free, they can still work, but
not us. This has to stop. It tarnishes France's image. We didn't travel
through 11 countries to find ourselves treated this way. We had a
different image of France with its motto of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
Interview with undocumented strikers
from the Villeneuve-la-Garenne crossroads
This is a transcript of an interview conducted by the "L'actualité des
luttes" team. In 2024, Carrefour recruited undocumented immigrants in an
irregular situation. Management had promised them a permanent contract,
only to ask them to bring a fake ID card in order to sign a six-month
contract. These employees of the Villeneuve-la-Garenne store therefore
denounced pressure and "extortion" from their superiors and were fired.
The employees decided to go on strike and called for a rally on
Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in front of the Carrefour entrance.
The seven laid-off workers are on site, along with Carrefour employees
who support them. The CGT union is hoping for a massive strike, as
without these employees, the store can no longer function. This is a way
to exert pressure on management to meet with them and listen to their
demands. People who come to do their shopping stop by, ask for
information, and some stay to support them.
Hafide : "We are here to denounce an intolerable situation regarding
undocumented workers. When I was hired, an intermediary promised me a
permanent job paid between 1800 and 2500 euros, if I gave him 2500
euros. And finally I find myself with a 6-month professionalization
contract, subsidized by France Travail , without promise of employment
and paid 1400 euros. If we are not there, the store does not function.
The work is difficult, we carry the products, for example the liquids
which are quite heavy and we have a heavy workload. There are 7 of us
who have been fired, the others will have a lot of work to put
everything on the shelves. The regional director and the regional human
resources director came to inform me when I started at 4:30 in the
morning that I was fired, the same for the others. This system has
existed since at least 2024. You have to present a fake identity card
and you are hired. But I know two people who, even before 2024, were
fired after six months, even though they were doing a good job. People
are fired and others are hired under the same conditions. Without the
labor inspectorate, this situation would not have been revealed." A
surprise inspection by the labor inspectorate has indeed demonstrated
that there is undeclared work.
A sales associate tells the same story of extortion. He took a lot of
risks to come to France in 2023 and had to pay smugglers. And here in
France, he's also being officially extorted. "There's blatant
discrimination, and the most arduous tasks are assigned to undocumented
workers. Fortunately, the labor inspectorate passed and the CGT supports
us, which is why we decided to go on strike. The same situation is
happening in other Carrefour stores."
Salah : "I've been working here for six months. A former sector manager
asked me for EUR2,500 to be hired. At first, he said I could pay EUR500
a month, but on the first day before signing the contract, I had to make
a payment of EUR1,500 to Western Union to stay. I had a student visa for
Romania and then crossed four countries to arrive in France in July
2023. I work from 5 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday to Friday and from 4 a.m.
to 10:30 a.m. Monday and Saturday. I have to take two night buses and
then walk 2 km. We talked with the Carrefour CGT union to decide on this
strike. Three colleagues went to the labor inspectorate, and we hired a
lawyer to defend ourselves. Some colleagues don't speak French; they're
getting ripped off. We're waiting for a promise of employment and a
CERFA (certificate of employment) to get regularized."
Mohamed , CGT union representative: "What first struck me were the
working conditions of undocumented colleagues. They work while running
with pallet trucks, I tell them not to take any risks. When one of them
was fired, I accompanied him to the CGT union. I am revolted by the
racket, which doesn't stop at 2,500 euros, but the bosses also ask them
every month to give them gifts, for example perfumes, cigarettes. They
take photos of the shelves if they are not tidy, they ask them for money
otherwise they threaten to denounce them. When he stopped giving money,
that's when Mr. H was fired.
For me, a large group like Carrefour, a multinational, ranked in the CAC
40, which takes advantage of the vulnerable situation of its employees
because they are undocumented, is unacceptable. That's why we're on
strike today to support them so they can be hired on permanent contracts
and have papers. The labor inspectorate's inspection found the
employment of undocumented workers, a system that has been going on for
several years and in other stores. Management is turning a blind eye to
these unacceptable working conditions.
The other employees are shocked by this situation and stand in
solidarity with the laid-off workers. We have launched an unlimited
strike, and if there is no response from management, we will continue
tomorrow and the following days. The CGT union is organizing a rally in
Massy on May 28, where a general shareholders' meeting will take place.
We were received this morning, along with the other unions, by the
interim director, because the former director was suspended because of
this affair. We are waiting for results.
"On the other hand, Carrefour supports Israel in its genocidal war in
Palestine. There has never been any discussion about this with
management; when we question them, they say it depends on senior
management, that there is nothing they can do. Yet we have noticed a
drop in sales in the Halal aisles."
On Friday, May 23, we learned that the undocumented employees and former
employees of the Carrefour store in Villeneuve-la-Garenne had received
promises of employment and CERFA forms, and this should be regulated by
the end of May 2025 .
Notes
[1] Radio broadcast of current events on the struggles from 12:30 p.m.
to 1:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, on Fréquence-Paris-Plurielle 106.3 fm.
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4493
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