at GRDF, the CGT renews its strike to demand a higher wage increase

Employees mobilized for a month at GRDF for a salary increase voted to renew the social movement on Thursday 1er December, at the call of the CGT. “Our federation has filed a new strike notice”until February 3, informed Agence France-Presse Eric Gautier, CGT coordinator for the company.

The social movement was at its strongest Thursday in Ile-de-France, where several hundred households were deprived of a gas connection for more than five days according to management. “It also slows down activity in the provinces”according to the CGT which claimed “around forty sites occupied or filtered out of three hundred and fifteen” throughout the territory.

Several thousand users of the gas network manager were also switched to free mode the same day by the strikers mobilized in Marseille (Bouche-du-Rhône), around Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme) and in the Var department.

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Rejection of a wage agreement concluded by the other unions

Majority in the company with 48% of the votes, the CGT is mobilizing in rejection of a salary agreement signed on November 18 by the three other representative trade union organizations (CFDT, CFE-Energie, FO) with the management and demands a renegotiation, unsuccessfully so far.

The wage agreement notably provides for a 2.3% increase for all, retroactive to 1er July, in addition to an increase in the basic national salary obtained at branch level, of the order of 4%.

The CGT, for its part, is demanding a 4.6% increase for all for 2022 and 2.3% in 2023, as well as individual and complementary measures for low wages. “There will be no new negotiations going back to the provisions of this agreement”assured the management of GRDF in response.

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However, she said to herself “aware that the themes of the expensive life require other exchanges”inviting the four trade union organizations to meet with her again on Wednesday 7 December on this subject.

Six thousand households switched to free mode near Clermont-Ferrand

In a leaflet from its Marseille federation distributed on Thursday, the CGT thus accuses the management of playing “the deterioration of the strike which has lasted for more than three weeks”. The latter therefore announces in response “the free passage of more than six thousand gas users in a popular district” from the city.

Similar actions have been carried out in the Var, where seven hundred customers have been made free, as around Clermont-Ferrand where six thousand households have benefited from this coup de force of the mobilized employees, according to Mr. Gautier. However, GRDF management claims not to be able to confirm these actions.

A gas technician member of the CGT was also summoned to court and appeared in court this Thursday in Saint-Etienne. “The management accuses him of having been a leader in a blockage while the site was filtered”, says Eric Gautier. The management of the gas manager also filed a dozen complaints for damage to equipment and vehicles during this movement.

The other representative unions, for their part, complain of having suffered “threats, intimidation and insults”, according to the UNSA, just like “physical or psychological violence” exercised on non-striking employees, according to a joint leaflet CFE-CGC, CFDT, FO.

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The World with AFP

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