FRANCE ---- On the Barat-Sofanor site in Crespin, equipment
manufacturer, subcontractor of Alstom, around thirty employees - out ofthe company's approximately 70 - stopped work to support two of their
colleagues subject to dismissals deemed "unfair". For the CGT: "We
dismantled all these arguments without head or tail in the face of
management. Nothing justified this dismissal and yet..." Another
employee would also be targeted by a similar procedure. "We are going to
go to the industrial tribunal, that's for sure. But what we want above
all is the reintegration of colleagues.» The mobilization will
continue "as long as it takes".
After the announcement of the closure of RDM in Blendecques, Xavier
Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France Region, requested that a
round table be set up by the State, with elected officials from the
territory, management and staff representatives to work on a site
takeover project. Bertrand Petit, MP, did the same. As did Cathy
Apourceau-Poly, communist senator from Pas-de-Calais. For the moment,
this round table has not yet been installed. Activity continued within
RDM Blendecques, but at a minimum. Since the announcement of the closure
fell, production has been stopped.
Music and firecrackers as an atmosphere in front of the gates of the
Millenium in Épernay (Marne). It is here that around thirty people,
notably wine workers, gathered on the morning of April 11, while the
annual meeting of the general union of Champagne winegrowers was being
held in the room. The demonstrators wanted to be heard to denounce the
excesses of some of their employers and demand higher wages. They
insisted on their working conditions, particularly during the harvest,
recalling that last year, four people died in the vineyards. Another
aspect also noted: accommodation conditions during the harvest.
Winegrowers in Épernay
?Around 70 people in Auxerre responded to the national call launched by
the CGT on April 4. A movement intended to denounce the working
conditions of social workers and the lack of resources for child
protection, particularly in Yonne. ?"Currently, there are ten children
in Yonne who are the subject of a placement measure, who are in danger
at home and for whom there is no reception place," laments a manager at
child protection at the Yonne Departmental Council. She believes that
the teams are suffering: "the professionals are exhausted and lose the
sense of what they must do. The meaning of our profession is to protect
children and families, so when the means are not not there, they have
the feeling of no longer knowing why they do this job." A figure to
illustrate the lack of resources in child protection: in ten years,
Yonne has lost 100 family assistants (going from 350 to 250), last year
there were only nine recruits.
After more than 40 days of conflict within the Vedettes Tropicales
company, employees, union, company management and representatives of
Martinique Transport have finally signed an agreement.
Maritime connections between Fort-de-France, Trois Îlets and Case-Pilote
were able to resume on the morning of April 8. Employees have received a
commitment to receive the bonuses claimed since 2016.
"This fight is exemplary for all employees in Martinique," underlined
the secretary of the CGTM.
The editorial director of the regional daily "La Provence" was laid off
and summoned for an interview prior to his dismissal on March 22, due to
an article published the day before on Emmanuel Macron's visit to
Marseille and the the "XXL net space" operation: this was deemed
"ambiguous" by the newspaper's management. Emotion within the editorial
staff: the newspaper's employees voted, by a very large majority, during
the day, for an indefinite strike, affirming that no ethical misconduct
had been committed and demanding the immediate reinstatement of the
editorial director. The La Provence unions also suspect possible
pressure from the main shareholder, the shipowner CMA CGM Rodolphe
Saadé, with the front page of Friday 22 also displaying words of apology
from the publication director.
After the indefinite strike voted by the journalists of La Provence, the
editorial staff of La Tribune, also owned by the shipowner CMA CGM, in
turn declared itself in favor of a strike on March 26. The editorial
staff of La Tribune-La Tribune Dimanche, like that of La Provence,
adopted a motion of no confidence. The journalists' societies (SDJ) of
BFMTV and RMC and the SNJ, CGT and SNME-CFDT unions of Altice Media
denounced, in a joint press release, the "scandalous decisions" taken in
La Provence and reaffirmed "their unwavering attachment to independence
of editorial staff of all powers, and editorial freedom". The
signatories recalled "the commitments to pluralism, independence and
journalistic ethics" announced by the shareholder CMA CGM. The
organizations called for a "symbolic gathering" of editorial staff in
Paris and the regions on the morning of March 25 to defend freedom of
information. Following this revolt by journalists, the management of the
regional daily announced the reinstatement of the editorial director and
his return to duty on Monday 25. Also note that after the crisis at the
daily La Provence, nearly sixty- ten companies of journalists, media,
unions and collectives called, in an article published in Le Monde on
March 26, the Minister of Culture to support the proposed transpartisan
law aimed at protecting the editorial freedom of the media.
Never before has Auchan faced such mobilization of its employees! March
29 was the 3rd day of strike since the beginning of March. This social
conflict, due to the level of mobilization, is unprecedented. This is
the first time that the movement has been followed by the company's four
unions (CGT, CFDT, FO and CFTC). Several stores and warehouses in the
Hauts-de-France region were disrupted. "Almost all stores in the North
are affected: the hypermarkets of Roncq, Faches-Thumesnil, Dunkerque,
Calais, Boulogne, Petite-Forêt, Louvroil. And also disrupted warehouses
like Lesquin or Amiens," declares the CDFT. In the North, strikers
demonstrated at the Auchan store, the largest in the region, in Roncq.
Employees wandered through the aisles in front of stunned customers. The
quarterly bonus went from EUR700 last year to EUR200 this year.
Remuneration in the form of shareholding has also collapsed: it
represented up to 1 month's salary a few years ago, but this is not the
case. is more than 17EUR The employees also severely criticize the
direction of management, the strategic choices in particular the massive
investment in automatic checkouts described as sieves: thefts are more
numerous than before, this would represent more than a million. euros
since the start of the year in this hypermarket.
Greve Auchan in Noyelles
The mobilization was well attended in Pérols in Hérault where the
customers were rather receptive to the employees' demands. In Tours
Nord, there were around a hundred strikers. The obligatory annual
negotiation on salaries did not satisfy the unions. Management, in a
press release, specifies that it has proposed a 1.5% increase for
employees and +1.2% for executives. The unions are demanding a 5%
increase this year: "We are asking that poor employees not be even
poorer in 2024 when we know that the wealth of the Mulliez family was
created by Auchan employees. ". If they are not heard, the unions do not
exclude "a stronger act 4". Another very controversial point is the
future working time agreement proposed by management. An agreement which
would provide, among other things, for forcing employees to work certain
weekends, Sunday mornings and public holidays according to the unions.
A barbecue to put the pressure on! While around 350 Veuve Clicquot
employees have been on strike for five weeks, new action took place on
March 28 in front of the champagne house's headquarters in Reims. The
unions want to maintain pressure on management to obtain a salary
increase of 4.9%. The inter-union called, on this occasion, all the
champagne houses to support them.?"17 million net profit at Veuve
Clicquot in 2023. We are not asking for much but we are asking for our
due, that is to say 200 euros per year to keep up with inflation,"
explains the CGT delegate .
It is the continuation of a fight that began several years ago but
undoubtedly not the end. 200 former sailors from the cross-Channel
company SeaFrance have just received a sum of 5,000 euros on average.
During the last wave of layoffs in 2012, they did not receive all of
their compensation. The SNCF, owner of the Calais company, ended up
paying them but several years late. It is this delay which has now been
compensated, to the tune of one million euros. "12 years is too long,
some may have died today," laments a former employee. The SeaFrance case
has not yet been closed because another legal procedure is underway.
This time, it involves obtaining compensation for 60 former employees,
notably officers, for an amount of 2.5 million euros,
Around fifty demonstrators came on April 12 in front of the departmental
council in Avignon, to protest against the closure of the Vaucluse
departmental analysis laboratory. This is responsible for health checks
in school canteens, livestock farms and the food industry. The
departmental council announced to employees and service providers that
it wanted to close this laboratory in September 2024, promising the
laboratory's territorial agents reclassification. Faced with this
announced closure, leaving 25 employees in the lurch, the CGT is
stepping up to the plate and criticizing the President of the
department. But the union is not alone: it is joined by the
Confédération Paysanne. The agricultural union criticizes the loss of a
local service for breeders. "We have compulsory controls, whether for
eggs or for those who raise cattle, goats, etc. We were told to turn to
private laboratories, but they are far away, it will cost more, not to
mention the shipping costs to send the analyses..."The departmental
analysis laboratory is also used to assess animal remains to check for
the presence of disease on farms. "We're not going to go to Marseille
with a dead animal in the car either," adds a breeder, "everyone loses."
Pallets, two large banners and leaflets: employees of Brico Privé
mobilized again on April 10 to protest against the 174 layoffs announced
in this company specializing in the online sale of DIY materials created
in 2012 in Toulouse. Entrances and exits of trucks were blocked at the
warehouse located in Castelnau-d'Estrétefonds before a new Social and
Economic Committee (CSE) which is to be held to discuss the job
protection plan, just four years later the takeover of the brand by the
Mousquetaires group. The hypothesis of a possible buyer makes the
situation even more confusing for Brico Privé employees. They don't
believe it and are preparing for a layoff scheduled for next July in the
middle of summer. The priority for CSE representatives and employees is
therefore to negotiate the conditions and severance pay. With a minimum
objective: obtaining 12 months of reclassification leave. "We just want
to leave with dignity," explains an employee, for 8 years at Brico
Privé, who experienced the heyday of the Toulouse company when it was
elected start-up of the year...
YARA Montoir de Bretagne
After years of underinvestment, regular formal notices for non-standard
discharges in the Loire and in the air (without ever meeting standards),
breakdowns, and strikes to denounce increasingly working conditions.
more dangerous due to the non-compliance of obsolete installations, the
Norwegian multinational Yara announced, at the beginning of November
2023, the closure of its fertilizer manufacturing plant in
Montoir-de-Bretagne to make it a simple logistics storage point chemical
fertilizers... with the "economic" dismissal of 139 employees out of
171. The employees proposed a plan B on March 15 to the site management.
The unions worked with experts from Secafi to develop an alternative
plan with the dual advantage of maintaining jobs and manufacturing less
polluting fertilizers. This plan actually involves some investments to
bring it up to standard and rehabilitate the factory to make it an
"exemplary" site in terms of safety and compliance with environmental
standards. Concretely, the employees had the idea of taking up all the
major unfulfilled promises of the industrialist: securing the control
room, installing filters to treat the nitrate dust from the prilling
tower (which was done in the Ravenna factory in Italy assures a CGT
delegate) and finally develop a microalgae factory, algae responsible
for "eating" the pollutants emitted by the factory. These algae would in
turn become fertilizers. The plan is estimated at 80 million euros. "As
much, if not less, than the dismantling of the production plant and the
creation of a huge storage area. Even management agrees with our
figures" adds the CFDT delegate. Despite this, management refused. And
then, a twist: at the end of March, a power outage on thWhy did the
generator at the fertilizer manufacturing plant not work as it should
have?... The ammonia tanks increased pressure on March 29. Without the
employees still on site and the firefighters, it was a guaranteed
disaster. The Office of Investigation and Analysis was contacted and on
April 11, the site monitoring commission met exceptionally at the
Montoir town hall. For the first time, the risk of explosion was clearly
expressed. Even if the factory must close, the sub-prefect of
Saint-Nazaire announced that a new financial penalty of 360,000 euros
would be imposed, as well as a new prefectural decree for Yara to empty
its ammonia tanks in accordance with the rules. , so that the
industrialist also meets safety standards. He also confided that the
Minister of Industry was seriously studying the issue. What if employees
took back control of the factories?
In Greece, employees of telephone platforms are mobilizing against their
precariousness. On March 13, employees of the four major telephone
platforms in Greece (Teleperformance, Webhelp, TTEC and Foundever) were
called for the third time since February to mobilize to demand salary
increases, the reintroduction of collective agreements (suppressed in
Greece during the financial crisis of 2010-2018) and a generalization of
permanent contracts while the rule in these companies is the
multiplication of fixed-term contracts.
The increase in salaries, which have been unchanged since 2010 when
Greece was hit by austerity measures imposed by the country's creditors
(European Union, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund), is
more than necessary. The average salary in the company is around 850
euros net, and 30% of employees receive 780 euros. In 2022, inflation in
Greece reached almost 10% and was still at 3.7% in December 2023.
Teleperformance has continued to grow in Greece. In 2018, it had around
7,000 employees. It is now the fourth largest employer in Greece with
more than 12,000 employees, 45% of whom come from abroad. The company
has been recruiting in recent years in the Maghreb countries for the
French and Arabic sections. After hiring candidates who have taken
remote tests, the company takes care of everything and issues new
recruits a special visa allowing them to work only in call centers.
North African workers often find themselves held hostage, as they cannot
leave to find work elsewhere for fear of losing their papers to remain
legally in Greece.
Between 2022 and 2024, the monthly minimum wage in Greece increased from
713 euros gross to 780 euros. But, to prevent the salary from increasing
too much, the company is increasing the base salary, as required by law,
while reducing the part of our remuneration linked to mastery of foreign
languages.
GERMANY
The time of rail strikes is coming to an end across the Rhine. The
German railway company Deutsche Bahn and the train drivers' union have
reached an agreement on their salary negotiations, the GDL union
announced on Monday March 25.?Since November 2023, German drivers have
been on strike for several days in a row. In addition to salary
increases, the GDL union demanded a working week reduced to 35 hours for
workers working staggered hours, without a reduction in income. One of
the latest offers from Deutsche Bahn included up to a 13% salary
increase, as well as the possibility of reducing the working week to 37
hours from 2026.
Unless otherwise indicated, sources: Voix du Nord, France Bleu, Le
Monde.e classified "Seveso" site could have had serious consequences!
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4178
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