A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #339 - Valdunes, DOM-TOM, Jamaica: chronicles of the class struggle - Wage insubordination 339 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

At the Saint-Martin private hospital in Caen, after 27 days of strike, 
employees are still demanding salary increases and better recognition of 
seniority, management is offering a bonus. ---- The unions, united in 
this conflict, are worried about the future of the site, bought in 2014 
by Ramsay, an Australian pension fund. The group, which bought several 
hospital establishments in France, made a profit of 2.9 million euros in 
Caen last year, 15 million over the last five years. But apart from the 
increases linked to Ségur de la santé, salaries have not followed...
Today, there is a shortage of 27 full-time equivalents for Saint-Martin 
hospital to operate normally.
The movement concerns different services every day. Only non-urgent 
appointments and operations are postponed.

End of a historic strike at Bausch-et-Lomb in Aubenas! The first in decades!
Employees of the eye drops manufacturer returned to work on March 13. An 
agreement was reached, after a meeting with the French management of 
Bausch-et-Lomb. The unions obtained a basket bonus of 147 euros per 
month for employees working night shifts and 147 euros in restaurant 
vouchers for daytime employees.

The CFTC and Solidaires Informatique unions called for a strike on March 
6 at the Luminess site in Mayenne. The last strike on the site was 
around fifteen years ago. There were around a hundred employees (out of 
around 250) mobilized for salary increases, ahead of the company 
specializing in digital services and printing.

End of the strike at FPEE in Brulon: the 400 employees of the Sarthoise 
window specialist voted to return to work on February 27. Management and 
unions have reached an agreement which provides for an increase in 
monthly salary of 100 euros net per month and for the company to cover 
75% of the complementary health insurance.

End of strike at the Baduel post office, in Guyana. The strike that 
began on February 19 ended on March 1, with the signing of an agreement 
between management and the UTG-CGT-PTT and SUD PTT unions. The closure 
of the half-night service within eight months, effectively resulting in 
a loss of salary, was compensated by commitments, particularly in terms 
of bonuses and promotion of agents.

Around ten Agaphone employees in Cabourg have exercised their right of 
withdrawal since March 7. They denounce the psycho-social risks in this 
company which provides telephone switchboards for several companies, 
sometimes with more than 30 calls/hour.
Unmanageable pace for some who say they found themselves managing four 
telephone lines at the same time.

Every day, they picket in front of a different office. Postal workers at 
the offices of Le Mans Chasse-Royale, Coulaines, Les Maillets and La 
Milesse have stopped working since March 6. They are protesting against 
a reorganization project wanted by management for January 2025. This 
provides for reductions in hours, as well as a reduction in staff 
numbers in certain offices.
Residents fear longer queues. For their part, agents fear seeing their 
working conditions deteriorate. With just one teller, people risk 
becoming impatient, and in the event of an incident, they will be left 
alone to deal with it.

Workers at the Yssingeaux hospital (Loire), the Jacques Barrot hospital 
center, have been on indefinite strike since March 4. The unions speak 
of staff exhaustion in the face of a lack of staff: agents are regularly 
called back from their rest days, retirees regularly work as reinforcements.
The Jacques Barrot hospital center is a hospital, but also a nursing 
home, with around 250 beds in total, for around 300 staff.

The mobilization of AESH (support agents for students with disabilities) 
from the Matiti high school in Macouria (Guyana) has been successful! 
The strike started on March 2 by the 5 agents ended on the 7th with the 
lifting of the picket. The AESH assigned to this agricultural high 
school demanded the reinstatement of a dismissed colleague, and the 
improvement of their working conditions.
They won their case on the following points:

A 3-year contract, without trial period, will be offered to the AESH 
which had been made redundant.
Establishing a job description regulating their mission
A weekly service schedule of 39 hours instead of 42 hours and payment 
for all overtime already worked.
On March 4, an agreement was reached following a mediation meeting with 
employees of the Plaine des Palmistes Family and Rural House (Reunion) 
at the Labor Directorate. On strike for two weeks, they complained of a 
deterioration in working conditions.

Staff of the Saint-François d'Assise Association went on strike on March 
5, in front of the association's headquarters in Saint-Denis de La 
Réunion. At the heart of the demands: recognition towards employees, 
social dialogue and lack of human resources. AFSA takes care of elderly 
people as well as children and adolescents subject to pathologies and 
disabilities. Employees are exhausted, the rate of absenteeism continues 
to increase because staff on leave or sick are not replaced.

The rotations of Vedettes Tropicales, which usually provide public 
service delegation for maritime transport with connections between 
Fort-de-France, Trois-Ilets and Case-Pilote in Martinique, have been at 
a standstill since February 26. Employees denounce the deterioration of 
their working conditions.
The demands also concern financial bonuses, grievances which do not date 
from yesterday (The findings remain the same as in November 2023). 
According to the CGTM union, it has been "8 years" since working 
conditions have been denounced in this maritime transport company. User 
representatives, 500,000 per year, stand in solidarity with the strikers 
to demand a mediator and negotiations. They also received the support of 
union representatives from the Régie des Transports.

Unusual walkout! Several Météo-France forecasters went on strike on 
February 22 to protest against predictive systems deemed unreliable! The 
protesters are also demanding an increase in staff numbers, in the 
all-digital age.

Valdunes (see previous CA): Denouncing the absence of news of the social 
plan planned by the buyer of the Trith-Saint-Léger site (the French 
group Europlasma) which will see the elimination of 130 positions, the 
employee strike movement of the Valdunes factory, the last manufacturer 
of train wheels in France, resumed on February 19 in Trith-Saint-Léger 
(North). After two days of strike, the mobilized employees indicated 
that they had obtained "guarantees of reclassification and training".
On the one hand, Europlasma has finally announced its recovery plan by 
proposing to invest EUR15 million.
On the other hand, the CGT demands that the former Chinese shareholder 
MA Steel pay for the planned layoffs. She asks that he participate in 
the financing of the PSE to be able to requalify, retrain, the people 
who will be left behind.

Between "150 and 200" of the 360 permanent employees of the Eiffel Tower 
Operating Company (SETE) went on strike on February 19, causing the 
closure of the monument. The CGT and FO unions denounce in particular 
the increase in the amount paid each year by this local public company 
to its majority shareholder (99%), the City of Paris, while its finances 
have suffered in recent years. The fee, collected by Paris town hall, 
will increase from 16 million to 50 million per year. With Covid, there 
was a loss of 130 million euros. In addition, lead depollution in 
particular cost more than 120 million euros.
This renewable strike, resulting in 6 days of closure of the monument to 
the public, ended on February 25. The unions and the monument operating 
company notably reached an agreement on "an ambitious investment of 380 
million euros until 2031". An Olympics effect?

Employees at the Bosch factory in Mondeville decided to return to work 
on March 5. Employees, both workers and managers, who, for the first 
time, went on strike to, they say, save their company and secure their 
future.
An agreement has been reached with one of the two possible buyers. 
However, employee representatives remain vigilant. They hope that the 
economic and financial project will be sufficiently solid.

Corsica Linea employees have been on strike since March 11 against the 
opening of a passenger and freight link between Toulon and Corsica. The 
latter will be provided by Méridionale, which belongs to CMA-CGM.
They denounce a threat to the Corsica-Continent public service 
delegation (DSP).

Goodyear
The conviction handed down in May 2020 against the tire manufacturer 
Goodyear for unfair dismissal at its Amiens site was confirmed on appeal 
on February 22. (Six months salary)
Called to rule on the case of a former employee of the Goodyear factory, 
the Amiens Court of Appeal judges that his dismissal "is devoid of real 
and serious cause", "for lack of proof that the decision to close the 
Amiens-Nord factory site in 2014 was necessary to safeguard the 
competitiveness of the Goodyear group."
The difficulties experienced by the Amiens factory alone are not enough, 
in the eyes of the Court of Appeal, to justify the existence of a threat 
to the competitiveness of the company. The court recalls that Goodyear 
had in 2014, the year the factory closed, "distributed dividends to its 
shareholders for the first time since 2004."

The social plan targeting the Sud-Ouest newspaper is not a surprise for 
its employees, but its scale caused a shock within the company and led 
to a one-day strike on March 6. 118 positions at the regional daily out 
of a total of 720 employees would be eliminated.
In detail, the editorial staff could lose 25 positions (out of around 
250 journalists), the rotativists would give up on 24 positions, the Pau 
printing house would see 18 positions eliminated when the prepress 
(preparation of printing) would lose 22. management and marketing are 
also affected but on a smaller scale.
If the number of editions will remain unchanged (ten), the closure of 
three agencies is planned by management. The local areas of 
Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Orthez in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Sarlat 
(Dordogne) are concerned.

March 4, 2009 - March 4, 2024. 15 years ago, the agreements signed 
between the State, communities and trade union and employer 
organizations put an end to 44 days of mobilization by the Liyannaj Kont 
Pwofitasyon (LKP).
The plural collective called LKP, made up of around forty associations, 
employee unions, political parties, cultural organizations, and even 
artists, intended to fight against the high cost of living in 
Guadeloupe, denounce monopoly situations and , as its name suggests, the 
"Pwofitasyon" of economic actors, to the detriment of consumers. It was 
also about making demands in favor of improving the living conditions of 
citizens in Guadeloupe.
The agreements notably provided for an increase in low wages, as well as 
an increase in the purchasing power of Guadeloupeans by reducing the 
price of certain products.
Today, what remains of the agreements full of promise, obtained through 
a hard struggle during this major general strike, which paralyzed the 
archipelago? Almost nothing has changed, according to general opinion. 
The LKP spokesperson agrees. For Elie Domota we are witnessing a 
prolonged inaction, or rather a "keeping the people of Guadeloupe in 
subjugation".

Lufthansa group ground staff were called to strike on February 20. A 
previous strike, at the beginning of February, was very successful, 
causing the cancellation of almost 90% of the flights initially planned 
by the group.
The Verdi union is demanding a 12.5% increase in salaries, with at least 
500 euros more immediately on the monthly pay slip as well as an 
inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros.
The pilots of Discover, the group's leisure subsidiary, also went on 
strike from Saturday February 17 to Monday February 19 for the 
introduction of a salary scale and regulations on flight missions and 
rest times.
Lufthansa always. This time, it was the cabin crew of the leading 
European airline group who were invited to strike on March 12 for all 
flights departing from Frankfurt airport, and on March 13 for all those 
departing from Munich. Employees want to benefit from the "record 
result" recently announced by the company.

Dozens of delivery workers in Kingston, Jamaica, went on strike on 
Valentine's Day demanding higher wages and other changes to their 
working conditions.
Drivers have planned one-day strikes in Kingston.
"They must improve the minimum wage"
"It's not enough to survive in this country"
There is much work to be done, there is much to conquer.
Get organized! To struggle against!
Transmitted by Solidarity Federation Jamaica, supporters of the AIT 
(International Workers' Association) in Jamaica. (Source CNT-AIT)

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