Annual salary negotiations have begun at RTE, the manager of high and very high voltage lines, where a tense social climate has reigned for several months, as we learned this Friday from concordant sources. And this cycle of debates, started with a first meeting on Tuesday, had a “pretty bad start”, according to Francis Casanova, union delegate of the central CGT of RTE, who could only see an abyss between what his union demands and the proposals management, particularly as it relates to general salary increases.
To “compensate for inflation in 2022/2023”, the CGT, the group’s main union with almost 40% representation, demands an increase of 6.9% for all.
The management, contacted by AFP, indicates that it has proposed, after this first meeting, an increase of 2.3% for all employees, as well as a “permanent bonus” of 2% with a floor of 95 euros/month for all employees and an increase of 1.84% for individual measures.
A “unanimous refusal of the unions”
These proposals were object, according to Francis Casanova, of a “unanimous refusal of the unions”. On the CGT side, “we believe that only wages can really offset inflation.”
The social climate within RTE is tense, especially since four agents were taken into police custody at the beginning of October at the facilities of the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), following a complaint by RTE.
This complaint against X refers to suspicions of fraudulent interventions in the electrical network within the framework of the social movements of June and July. The four agents are summoned before the Criminal Court of Paris on February 28. The CGT Federation of Energy then denounced a “criminalization of the right to strike”, aimed at “silencing wage demands”.
A day of strike on Thursday, November 24, at the call of an inter-union, mobilized 40% of the strikers over the present workforce, according to the CGT, evoking the employers for their part a rate of 34%.
A new bargaining meeting is scheduled for December 1.
Source: BFM TV
