Strikes continue in France due to government requisitions

The requirements imposed by the government French To alleviate the shortage of fuel caused by a strike at refineries, they led several unions on Thursday to call a general strike next Tuesday to defend the rights of the strikers.

Four unions, including the CGT and FO, and several youth organizations called for a general strike on Tuesday.for the rise in wages and the defense of the right to strike”, announced in a statement.

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The trigger came from the decision of a government under pressure to compulsorily mobilize striking workers from two fuel depots, under penalty of sanctions, according to the trade union centrals.

Some of the main unions of railway employees, the Paris metro and civil servants have already urged them to support the strike. “Anger grows, even in our professions”warned the transport section of the CGT.

At the end of September, workers at two Esso-ExxonMobil and four TotalEnergies refineries launched a strike to demand a wage increase, in a context of inflation and extraordinary benefits from the energy giants.

TotalEnergies workers during the strike at the refinery. (EFE/Guillaume Horcajuelo)

Although 54% of the French consider that their demands are legitimate, according to an Odoxa poll for the newspaper Le Figaro, two thirds of the people questioned support the requisitions and seven out of ten assure that the strike affected them.

“I find it shameful that we are the ones who suffer, because (…) if I don’t fulfill my contracts, they don’t pay me, then…”, Élisabeth Mailhes, a mother of three and self-employed in the cleaning sector, told AFP on Thursday at a gas station in Paris.

The strike left almost a third of gas stations without fuel. Although the government of the liberal Emmanuel Macron initially advocated calling for dialogue, the long queues of vehicles at the pumps and criticism from the opposition forced him to intervene.

“There is always a tendency to pass the hot potato to the government. [Pero] We can’t replace everyone.” Macron assured Wednesday night in an interview on France 2, calling TotalEnergies and the CGT “responsibility.”

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The pressure from the executive took effect on Thursday. Trucks loaded with fuel left the warehouses with mobilized personnel, one of the six refineries abandoned the strike and TotalEnergies finally called a “collective wage bargaining”.

Commitment to two unions

After long hours of meeting in the Parisian business district of La Défense, where the headquarters of the French multinational are located, two major unions, CFDT and CFE-CGC, announced early Friday that they accepted the management’s proposal.

According to them, the company finally offered them a 7% salary increase and a bonus of between 3,000 and 6,000 euros (2,937.5 to 5,875 dollars), slightly higher than the 6% that TotalEnergies announced on Thursday morning.

However, the CGT union, one of those that called the general strike, abandoned the negotiation and denounced that it was a “farce”.

“The proposals that are on the table are very insufficient”, said his representative Alexis Antonioli.

This trade union central demands an increase of 10% in 2022 –7% due to inflation and 3% due to the distribution of profits–, but the management of that company is open in principle to negotiating only the salary for 2023.

In the case of Esso-ExxonMobil, its management has already agreed to a 6.5% salary increase in 2023 and various bonuses with a union majority, but which the CGT and FO consider insufficient.

The CGT even appealed the requisition of personnel from a warehouse of this company, on which the justice will rule on Friday.

Forcing strikers to work is an exceptional measure. The main precedent dates back to 2010, when the government of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy requisitioned refinery workers on strike against pension reform.

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The call for a general strike on Tuesday also has in its sights the delay of the retirement from 62 to 65 years that Emmanuel Macron wants to carry out in the coming months. His first attempt in 2019 and 2020 sparked massive protests.

The mobilization could increase social tension in France, in a context of inflation and calls to save energy due to the war in Ukraine. On Sunday, the left-wing opposition organized a march “against expensive life”, where these demands converge.

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Source: Elcomercio