Three weeks of strike and “we got nothing”, cowardly, disappointed, Gaëtan Lecocq, CGT delegate from ArcelorMittal in Dunkirk (North), the group’s largest steel factory. Launched on December 4, the movement is described as“historical” by the strikers. In certain services linked to production, there were 100% strikers, according to the CGT. The latter did not at all appreciate the requisition of five workers at whose homes the police arrived at 1 a.m., on the night of December 4 to 5. “This is not the first time that they have done this, under the pretext that we are a Seveso site and that these guys would be essential to the security of the site, but they work on the trains which transport the reels of steel “says a steelworker who works at blast furnace 4. It is the largest of this immense industrial site (8 kilometers by 4), long a flagship of the French steel industry, from the time when it was called Usinor, before becoming Sollac , then Arcelor and finally ArcelorMittal in 2007.
On March 30, the shielding of the blast furnace was pierced, which caused a flow of 150 tons of molten metal and a fire which set fire to this giant equipment from which 10,000 tons of steel come out per day. day. He was out of work for almost three months. “No one was surprisedconfides Gaëtan Lecocq. We keep asking questions about the obsolescence of the facilities, but they don’t listen to us. We even made “imminent danger” alerts to state services, but nothing…”
It is the opening, at the beginning of December, of obligatory annual negotiations on salaries, and the prospect of a new collective agreement, at the beginning of January, “less favorable on social benefits”, which pushed the CGT to strike in Dunkirk. To cope with inflation, the union demanded an increase of 300 euros gross. “We manufacture 25-tonne steel coils which are sent for finishing at other sites in the group. We lasted three weeks. It caused a mess in several factories”assures a maintenance technician who prefers not to give his name “given the climate that reigns here”. Management estimated the shortfall in production at 115,000 tonnes and regrets “disruptions which seriously harm the credibility of the Dunkirk site in a context of defending heavy investments”.
“Before, we were princes”
The signing of the obligatory annual negotiation agreements by two unions, the CFDT and the CFE-CGC, on December 14, did not take place at the Dunkirk steel giant, where the CGT is in the majority among production workers and technicians. “We obtained an increase of 3.7%, well below what we demanded and the 4.4% granted last year”, deplores Philippe Verbeke, regional CGT delegate. Too little for the strikers who clock out “the 800 million paid to shareholders at the start of the year, the more than 6 billion in profits for the group over the first nine months. And state aid amounting to millions for the decarbonization of the Dunkirk factory”the leading industrial polluter in Hauts-de-France.
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