A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #345 - Unionism, Montpellier University Hospital: ONET, an 80-day strike ! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last Friday, December 1 ,  ONET employees who had been on strike for 80 
days signed an agreement with their management. 80 days of strike is 
just huge  ! Everyone was able to gain important experience to 
disseminate to prepare and nourish all of tomorrow's struggles. ---- The 
situation in the cleaning sector is catastrophic and symbolic of the 
professions mainly occupied by women (80%), often from immigrant 
backgrounds  [ 1 ] , many raising their children alone. These workers, 
on the front line during the COVID crisis, remain above all the 
representatives of modern slavery from which everyone benefits.

When we clean the public hospital, even if subcontracted, we work for 
the well-being and health security of an entire society.

This fundamental social utility is invisible, devalued, underpaid. The 
working conditions in the sector can be summed up by infernal speeds, 
low salaries (600 euros, this is the average net salary of these 
employees), imposed part-time work (80%), the multiplication of 
fixed-term contracts, to which Added to this is increased surveillance 
of employees and very aggressive management. Night work, repetitive 
actions, exposure to harmful and carcinogenic products, the 
repercussions of these jobs on the health of the women who occupy them 
are still largely unknown and minimized.

Anger can be organized, and struggle can be sustained
In Montpellier, the trigger for the strike at the CHU, in addition to 
the demands for an increase in salaries and a bonus equivalent to a 
thirteenth month, is the refusal to be imposed, without any consultation 
and training, a telephone tracking device . The arrival of this new form 
of policing has crystallized a general fed up around working rates and 
conditions. In addition to controlling their time spent in each room, 
bosses then control the quality of work that is impossible to complete 
in the allotted time1.

For 80 days, every morning, a strike picket of ONET employees was set up 
in front of Lapeyronie hospital. More than half of the staff at the 
Montpellier agency joined the movement. The first objective was to be 
visible, publicized and supported: leaflets around the CHU, support 
gathering on the picket, participation in other demonstrations of the 
social movement (September 23, October 13, November 25), in actions and 
support evenings. The second objective was to attempt an extension of 
the strike by gathering in front of the regional management of the SNCF 
to put pressure on another of the sites of the same group, and to put 
the employees on strike.

Poster of the Onet striker support event
Union, support committee and strike fund
The union delegates largely participated in leading the strike, but 
every day, it was on the picket or in general meetings that decisions 
were taken and the distribution of tasks was recorded.

To support the struggle, there was the union, the support committee and 
the strike fund to hold out as long as possible  [ 2 ] . This combo has 
proven to be very effective. Supported mainly by the CGT of the CHU and 
the Local Union, the union fulfilled its interprofessional role through 
financial support, and moral, material and strategic support.

But the originality and exemplarity of this struggle were also played 
out around the presence of a large, very active support committee, of 
around 80 people, which organized multiple actions to also replenish the 
strike fund  [ 3 ] . The daily presence of unionists and supporters on 
the pickets also allowed the strikers to hold out over time.

A struggle full of hope
Even if all their demands were not met, at the end of the 80 days of 
strike, the agreement reached significantly limited the impact of the 
tracking system denounced and an exceptional bonus of 650 euros was 
snatched. Other struggles will have to take place to perpetuate it. 
Whether we see the glass half empty or half full, the struggle has above 
all allowed the creation of a real work collective. Workers, scattered 
across several CHU sites, met and built the struggle together. The 
strikers helped create connections within the union and beyond the union.

Onet employees wandering around the University Hospital
Newspaper photo Le Poing
An exemplary struggle for dignity
Uniting around your struggle makes you proud, creating a solidarity 
movement makes you dignified, and making yourself visible makes you 
strong. These strikers say today that they are in solidarity with the 
struggles of other women who work for low wages and who are also 
invisible and despised.

This incredible experience a few months ago prepares the rest of their 
internal struggles but also brings hope for the struggles to come, 
particularly in feminized sectors. Discussions with the ONET strikers 
and their supporters clearly show that there is a great awareness today 
of the similarities in all these professions mainly occupied by women.

Cleaning, serving, caring for, educating are part of the same 
patriarchal logic.  Considered as “ natural ” functions  carried out for 
free in the domestic context by women, these activities are despised, 
underpaid and devalued.

Perhaps next March 8 could have the ambition to unite employees in these 
feminized sectors who find themselves facing the same problems: 
precariousness, often deplorable working conditions and salaries, loss 
of meaning, managerial brutality or institutional violence.

Anne (UCL Montpellier)

To validate

[ 1 ]  See also the various strikes which have punctuated the sector 
over the last 15 years, and the reports which followed. A spotlight was 
placed on the salary, social and human ignominy organized by the 
cleaning giants, as well as on the complicity of large public service 
companies (CHU, SNCF, RATP, etc.).

[ 2 ]  The strike fund collected more than 20,000 euros out of the 
50,000 euros of unaffected wages.

[ 3 ]  The collective was created by Révolution Permanente and joined by 
numerous collectives and political parties. The strikers also benefited 
from the support of Ruffin and Rachel Keke, LFI deputy and former 
spokesperson for the strike of maids at the Ibis Batignolles hotel.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?CHU-de-Montpellier-ONET-un-mouvement-de-greve-de-80-jours
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