The CGT is ready to start negotiations on Monday, while the strike generates supply disruptions everywhere in France.
The CGT from TotalEnergies is extending the strike this Sunday, October 9. “The movement was renewed everywhere“, explained Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator at TotalEnergies, “in the absence of a response from the general managementto the open letter sent on Saturday to the CEO of the group Patrick Pouyanné.
The union proposed the day before to limit its demands to the question of wage increases to begin negotiations on Monday in full strike in refineries and depots, at the origin of still significant supply disruptions in service stations. The CGT has indeed proposed to give up its demands on hiring and investments in France to open negotiations, after a ten-day strike which shut down the main refinery of the French group and two others of the Esso group. -ExxonMobil.
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“We are ready to begin [les négociations] from Monday on the basis of our wage demand alone“, wrote Éric Sellini, CGT coordinator at TotalEnergies, on Saturday in an open letter addressed to the CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné and posted on twitter.
The latter has not spoken publicly to date on the movement, but in an internal group video on Tuesday, he acknowledged that “the company’s results are exceptional in 2022— $10.6 billion in first-half profit — and said, “we won’t forget you“. In recent days, executive pressure on the group has intensified. From Prague on Friday, President Emmanuel Macron called on oil groups and unions to “responsibility“, relayed by the declarations of several ministers pushing for wage increases.
“There is no general supply problem for our country, it is important to repeat it“Commented in turn on Saturday the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune. “There are localized phenomena, linked to social movements: everyone is called to responsibility, businesses and trade unions as the Prime Minister said yesterday, so that the situation is resolved as quickly as possible; it is also in their hands, we encourage them to do so“, he said on the sidelines of the Paralympic day on Saturday in Paris.
As a result, in part, of these strikes, “20.7% of service stations are experiencing difficulties with at least one product“, against 19% the day before, according to a count Saturday at 1:00 p.m. from the Ministry of Energy Transition. “Hauts-de-France and Ile-de-France remain particularly affected, even if the situation improves very slightly there“, according to the authorities. Thus, in the Pas-de-Calais “41% of stations encounter difficulties“, that is to say ruptures on at least one fuel, “against 52% the day before yesterday“, and in 39% Saturday in the North (against 47% Thursday).
10% increase
“The measures we have taken, including the authorization for heavy goods vehicles refueling the stations to circulate at the weekend, have made it possible to stabilize the situation at the national level.“, said Saturday afternoon to the press the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The CGT began its movement at the end of September to demand a 10% increase in wages for 2022 – 7% for inflation, 3% for the sharing of wealth. For its part, management recalls that it has granted salary measures representing an average increase of 3.5% in 2022 and refers to a negotiation session scheduled for November 15 for salaries for 2023. It seems inflexible on this timetable.
“We have a hardline management opposite that refuses, despite gigantic benefits, to discuss salaries for 2022», declared Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary on the Normandy platform, considering himself «taken hostage“by a direction”who refuses to open a discussion“. “From 70% to 90% of teams“are on strike,”we have between 100 and 150 daily employees mobilized“, he added.
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Asked on Saturday about France Inter, the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger for his part disapproved of these “preventive strikes», judging it necessary to first go through negotiation. On Saturday, three of the six French refineries were still shut down, according to the CGT: the largest refinery of TotalEnergies, in Normandy, and the two French refineries of the American Esso-ExxonMobil.
“The employees of our company, through their work, have enabled the Group to obtain stratospheric profits“, continues his letter. “As proof, the ability of the general management to release extremely quickly an exceptional envelope of 2.62 billion euros for shareholders.» «We went very quickly to remunerate the shareholders but we tell the employees that it is urgent to wait: why this difference in treatment?asked Thierry Defresne, CGT secretary of the TotalEnergies European committee, joined by AFP.
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Furthermore, at the TotalEnergies refinery in Feyzin (Rhône), “there were 100% strikers in the dispatch service at 6 a.m.“, declared Pedro Afonso, elected CGT, preventing any filling of the trucks. Blockades by strikers lead to lower fuel deliveries, so petrol stations are more often out of stocks of petrol or diesel. TotalEnergies manages almost a third of French stations. But the group also puts the disturbances on the account of the success of the discount at the pump of 20 centimes which it grants since September 1, in addition to the rebate of the State of 30 centimes.