The CGT is calling for a boost to the minimum wage, an increase in the civil service index point, and the indexation of wages to inflation.
Asked Tuesday about BFM Business, the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, defended the increase in wages rather than the distribution of bonuses, promoted by employers and the government. «The salary is every month, it’s social security contributions (…). The bonuses (…) it’s one shot», he said.
The previous day of strike and demonstration, October 27, in the middle of school holidays, had mobilized little: the police had identified 14,000 demonstrators in the provinces and 1,360 in Paris, the CGT not giving a figure.
This time, Céline Verzeletti, CGT confederal secretary, says she expects with «150 to 200 demonstration points» a mobilization at least equivalent to that of October 18, at the height of the refinery strike. There were then 107,000 demonstrators according to the police (300,000 according to the union), with strikes in the nuclear and transport sectors.
In Paris, the demonstration will set off from the Place de la République in the direction of the Place de l’Opéra at 2 p.m., without Philippe Martinez: traveling to Nîmes as part of the professional elections in the civil service planned for the beginning of December, there will parade from 2:30 p.m.
If FO, Solidaires and the FSU had joined the call to demonstrate on the 18th, the Montreuil plant is this time the only union of employees to call to participate in this day at national and interprofessional level, the FSU and Solidarity calling only locally to join the processions.
On condition of anonymity, a union official said he doubted the usefulness of this day, while wage negotiations are being conducted «in companies». «We don’t want leapfrog days that don’t give perspective», says this source, for whom the urgency is rather to see «how we are going to do on pensions» – the government’s reform project should be presented early 2023.
An approach as close as possible to the field defended for months by the CFDT: «Nobody can believe that a general increase in wages would come after a large interprofessional demonstration, it does not work like that», swept its secretary on Radio Classique on Tuesday. General, Laurent Berger.
The FSU estimated that a new day of mobilization on wages was «complicated to build» at the national level, and therefore «it is above all the RATP which risks being visible», according to its secretary general, Benoît Teste.
The RATP is in fact expecting a dark day, with a strike call relayed by all the unions which have set a clear objective: «zero metro, zero RER».
According to initial estimates from the management on Monday, traffic will be «very strongly disturbed» on the metro and the RER (RATP zone), and «disturbed on the bus and tram».
The watchword – increase in wages and improvement of working conditions through recruitment – is unifying in a company where the social climate is severely degraded. The probable future boss of the RATP, Jean Castex, who is heard Tuesday and Wednesday in the Senate and the National Assembly, will have a lot to do to restore social dialogue.
At the SNCF, on the other hand, mobilization at the call of the CGT-Cheminots alone promises to be limited. No other union wanted to follow the movement, after an already mixed mobilization on October 18.
Asked by AFP, historian Stéphane Sirot, specialist in trade unionism, expects a day «not necessarily very unifying», with a CGT «a little isolated» and of which certain federations are «more concerned» by the deadline professional elections in the public service. «The challenge is to know if the CGT will keep its first place» in the public after having lost it in the private sector to the benefit of the CFDT, he recalls.