Monoprix assigns thirty-nine of its employees to ban any demonstration in its stores

It is a hearing that takes on a particular hue at a time when trade union organizations are denouncing the requisitions of striking refiners as attacks on the right to strike.

In a small room of the Paris judicial court, this Tuesday, March 28, thirty-nine employees of the Monoprix de Picpus (12^e arrondissement) were assigned for interim measures – an emergency procedure before a single judge – after demonstrating in their store on December 8 and 19, 2022.

This, they explain, to denounce the lack of staff and its consequences, while one of their colleagues, alone to do the work of three in the butchery department, had just been summoned for an interview prior to dismissal. On their smartphone, some show photos of pallets of fresh meat abandoned for hours in unrefrigerated aisles.

Intervention of bailiffs

After 25 or 40 years ” Of house “, they can’t get over finding themselves before the courts. But during these two mornings of mobilization, Monoprix brought in bailiffs – an increasingly common practice in social conflicts – to see that the actions of employees “ exceeded the limits of the right to demonstrate within the company”.

“Employees engaged in a partial and unauthorized occupation, calling out to other employees, customers, banging on automatic cash registers, chanting “resignation management”, which disrupted the operation and smooth running of the store”, details at the hearing M^e Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, for Monoprix Exploitation.

He plays a video on his computer. Filmed on December 19, 2022 near the checkouts, we hear a noisy protest atmosphere and “Free Muhammad”the colleague then in an interview prior to his dismissal in an office. “If that is not an unlawful disturbance of public order, then the rule of law is threatened,” launches the lawyer without flinching.

“Repetition prevention”

But the issue of the hearing is quite different, he recalls. It is “the question of the prevention of reiteration”. For a witness was heard to say: “Other actions are planned for January”.

Thus the company asks the judge to order any employee, of the company or another, “not to renew their participation” movement in a Monoprix Exploitation store, in Paris or elsewhere, under penalty of being fined 1,000 euros per person and per offence, for three years. A sum, when most pay is around the minimum wage (1,353 euros net). Monoprix also requests payment of 1,116 euros in bailiff’s fees, as a provision for damages.

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