QWhat would Marcel Paul, the minister of industrial production at the origin of the creation of EDF, have thought of it in 1946? He, the resistance fighter and trade unionist of the CGT to whom electricians and gas workers had paid an emotional tribute, in 1982, the day of his burial in the Parisian cemetery of Père-Lachaise. With 30.31% of the votes, its union has just lost, to the benefit of the CFE-CGC (33.08%), the first place it had always held, during the elections of staff representatives, completed on Monday November 13 .
“It’s a historic victory for us”, welcomed Amélie Henri, central delegate of the confederation of executives at EDF SA. The result of a more demanding policy of the union chaired, since 2016, by François Hommeril, who likes to point out that the CFE-CGC is “the organization that made the most progress during the last two electoral cycles”.
Neither revolutionary nor reformist, and without concession for the policy led by Emmanuel Macron since 2017, he defends “a third union way”that of “one-minded objectors”, he explained in June to the Réalités du dialogue social association. With the same message: “The economy has gone off the rails. » HAS “reducing costs and maximizing profits”he opposes “a strategy designed for development”.
Trivialization
This renewed combativeness, also evident in the CFDT, and the maintenance of an inter-union front born from the mobilization against the pension reform tend to trivialize the CGT. If it remains the leading union in the electricity and gas industries with a large third of the votes, it was still in the majority (51%) in 2007. An erosion which is found at the SNCF, where it remains in the lead, and at Renault. In a “workers’ fortress” where it has long maintained with the Communist Party a spirit of struggle and a “high level of class consciousness” for decades, the CGT has been dethroned by the executives’ union for years.
In its November 14 edition, Humanity takes note of the decline at EDF, but it registers it “in a context of disintegration of the public service and criminalization of union action”. The communist daily should instead call on Sophie Binet, the general secretary of the confederation, still alongside Renault workers in Flins (Yvelines), Wednesday November 15, to demand a replacement for Zoe rather than the reconversion of the factory.
Former leader of the CGT executives, she knows that technological upheavals in the industry are increasing the number of qualified employees. Fewer operators and more technicians do not suit the old workers’ powerhouse.