The Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis and the FO union announced this Wednesday the end of the garbage collectors’ strike movement. It started on January 18.
It was the third in four months in Marseille, which has seen thousands of tonnes of rubbish invade the city.
If the strike notice will be officially lifted from Thursday evening, as the Force Ouvrière union announced to AFP, the metropolis hopes for a return to normal within eight days.
Some 2,000 tonnes of garbage are still to be collected across the city, told AFP Yves Moraine, the elected LR in charge of negotiations on this file for the metropolis.
40 euros gross more per month
Force Ouvrière, a powerful majority union among territorial agents, whether in the city of Marseille or the metropolis, announced that it had obtained a gross increase of 40 euros per month for Marseille garbage collectors, as well as the opening of a “construction site revaluation of the entire compensation scheme” for agents responsible for collecting rubbish bins.
At the origin of the movement, FO demanded an increase of 80 euros for Marseille garbage collectors, who would be paid less than their counterparts in other municipalities of the metropolis.
Private trucks urgently called
“I take note of the announced resumption of waste collection by the metropolis and I welcome it for the people of Marseilles”, reacted the socialist mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, in a statement sent to AFP, after having decided to engage in this conflict on Monday evening by having private dump trucks “urgently intervene” to try to pick up the piles of rubbish threatening in particular to end at the sea with the strong mistral.
“In an exceptional situation, an exceptional response”, had justified the mayor of Marseille, by interfering in an area nevertheless reserved for the metropolis, led by Martine Vassal (LR): “All the elements are there to rush us towards a security drama and ecological”, according to the city councilor representing a left-wing coalition, who said he was forced to “get out of the legal framework to protect the Marseillaises and the Marseillais”, by mobilizing “extraordinary derogatory means in order to preserve public health”.
This new garbage crisis was all the more threatening as the city is currently subjected to a very violent mistral which risks both carrying a large part of the waste towards the sea (which had already happened in October), but also to stir up the trash fires set off here and there by exasperated Marseillais.