Two weeks after the start of the mobilizations, refineries and TotalEnergeries depots remain blocked. On Monday, October 10, the CGT and the management of the oil company had still not opened negotiations on a wage increase, the main demand of the strikers, despite growing pressure from the government.
The same morning, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, again invited, on RTLthe actors of the conflict “to sit around the table”. Referring to the measures taken to improve the supply of service stations, the head of government assured that the situation had to “improve over the week”.
At the pump, the situation remains critical: according to a latest situation update released by the Ministry of Energy Transition at 3 p.m. on October 9, nearly a third (29.7%) of service stations in France lacked at least one fuel (against 21% on Saturday).
The CGT denounces a “blackmail” of the management
TotalEnergies offered on Sunday to advance wage negotiations, scheduled for November, to October (no specific date), provided that the refineries and depots currently blocked resume work. A “blackmail which in no way guarantees the satisfaction of the demands expressed and therefore the resumption of work”swept the union on Monday, pending a position with the strikers at midday.
“Blackmail, currently, it is the French who experience it, so the objective is to get out of this situation”said a little earlier on BFMTV Jean-Marc Durand, director of European refining at TotalEnergies. “We want those who bother the French to stop as soon as possible, so we want to sit down at the negotiating table, we can do so in a serene atmosphere, and not under a system of blocking supplies from the French”warned the leader.
The situation in the largest French oil group, which controls a third of the country’s service stations, contrasts with that of Esso-ExxonMobil, whose two refineries in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime) and Fos -sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône) are at a standstill, but where a meeting must take place with the unions on Monday.
10% increase requested
“I always find it rather curious to go on a preventive strike, even when a discussion is announced”deplored Monday the Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, on France Inter. The group’s management wants the negotiations to focus on wages for 2023. But given the high inflation, it is 2022 that the CGT wants to talk about, which has been calling for several weeks for a renegotiation of the wage measures granted at the start of the year. , equivalent to an average increase of 3.5%.
The union is asking for a 10% increase in wages this year (7% for inflation, 3% for the sharing of wealth), the energy giant having made 10.6 billion dollars in profit in the first semester 2022.
In the meantime, therefore, the mobilization continued at the Normandy refinery, near Le Havre, the largest in France; at the La Mède biorefinery (Bouches-du-Rhône); and at the Flandres fuel depot near Dunkirk (North). The Feyzin refinery (Rhône) is also shut down due to a technical accident.
Employer alerts
Faced with the difficulties of access to fuel, employers sounded the alarm on Monday. The Confederation of SMEs has requested measures from the State to supply service stations. “If the normal way of social dialogue does not make it possible to find a way out of this conflict”it is appropriate, according to the organization, “that the public authorities, and in particular the prefects, assume their responsibilities by taking measures, including legal ones, such as requisitions, to ensure the normal operation of refineries. »
The Medef, for its part, calls on the CGT to “grasp the outstretched hand” refiners ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies. “Many companies are starting to have real difficulties in carrying out their activity”worries the union, which recalls that 75% of employees “use their car every day” to get to their place of work.