In the central aisle of the Brétigny-sur-Orge hypermarket (Essonne), dozens of shelves long, customers stopped their carts overflowing with food to watch an unexpected procession pass by. “Raise wages, raise wages!” », chanted, Friday March 29, around thirty employees, clapping their hands in an effective din. At first surprised, several customers applaud in rhythm to encourage them. “We are poorly paid! We are poorly paid,” proclaim, an hour later, 15 kilometers away, their colleagues at the Villebon-sur-Yvette hypermarket (Essonne).
There have been one-hour walkouts like these in more than 150 Auchan stores in France, according to the inter-union association bringing together the CFTC, FO, CGT and CFDT, united for the first time in the history of ‘Auchan. The unions called for 3,000 to 5,000 strikers (out of 59,000 employees) for this third day of protest in a month.
The mandatory annual negotiations (NAO) have just ended without agreement, on a unilateral decision by management that employees consider “indecent” : + 1.5% for employees, + 1.2% for executives. “Inflation was at 4.9% in 2023, so what we want is 5%, to keep the same level of purchasing power. Today, the feeling of employees is that a salary is for three weeks, not for a month. notes Benoît Soibinet, FO union delegate in Brétigny.
“It was good to work here”
Auchan calculates differently, by adding last year’s NAO to indicate an increase “cumulative” 8.1% for employees (+6.6% in 2023 and +1.5% in 2024), “these measures are beyond inflation over the period, estimated at +6.4%”, indicates the group World. Except that the unions consider that the NAO 2023 was not intended to anticipate the coming year, but to catch up with the level of inflation at the time (at 5.9% over one year in December 2022), which weighed heavily on the purchasing power of employees.
For a long time, the latter felt rather better off than their colleagues in mass distribution. “When I arrived twenty-four years ago, it was good to work here: we had lots of bonuses, we were well paid”explains an employee in the butchery department. “There was the quarterly progress bonus based on turnover, different individual bonuses…”, lists one of his colleagues, at Auchan since 1991. “ And then participation! adds another, there for thirty-two years. Some years it was more than a month’s salary! It made it possible to make plans: buy a car, do work on your home… But there’s nothing left, people are stuck. »
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