The CGT Energía decreed this Thursday “energy sobriety day”. The employees occupy electricity production plants throughout France, in particular in Saint-Ouen, where the employees cut the power in particular in the stadium of france.
In recent days these power cuts have multiplied in protest of the pension reform. From the permanent office of the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher in Yvelines to the city of Annonay in the Ardèche, the city of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, passing through the territories of Pas-de-Calais, the center of Lyon, the prefectures of the south to west as in Albi or Périgueux… In total, several thousand residents were affected by these load cuts that generally did not last more than two hours.
Actions that could even be amplified. Sébastien Menesplier, secretary general of CGT Mines-Énergies, warned that selective cuts, reductions in electricity production and site occupations are expected to multiply in the coming weeks. According to the union, this type of action would not be illegal.
From 1500 to 30,000 euros fine
A point of view that is not shared by lawyers specializing in social law, who point to two types of threats for the authors of these cuts. Disciplinary and criminal sanctions.
In the disciplinary aspect, the workers, whether they are employees of the Enedis distributor or of the RTE network manager, are exposed to dismissal for “serious misconduct”. But they also face criminal charges.
Article R323-37 of the Energy Code punishes with a 5th class fine, that is, 1500 euros, “any person not authorized by the network administrator who operates an element or activates a device on the network”.
The whole question of legal interpretation is whether the employees in question can be considered “unauthorized by the network operator.”
But the penalties can be even harsher if the perpetrators are charged with demotion. A crime for which the penal code provides for up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros. A priori, no degradation would have been observed in the facilities.
Enedis has announced in any case that it has filed complaints as it does every time “wild cuts” are reported.
Difficult to identify the authors.
But in reality, the perpetrators are rarely punished. The difficulty for Justice is to identify the perpetrators who generally act hooded and avoid CCTV cameras.
The controversy may also relate to the definition of these acts. Are the cuts related to the right to strike or are they excluded from it? On this point, justice seems to have decided. In 2006, for example, the Versailles Court of Appeal upheld the CGT’s sentence of a fine for “wild outages” of gas and electricity dating back to 1998.
Finally, there remains the question of the modus operandi that can influence the possible sanction. On February 28, four RTE employees appeared before the Paris Criminal Court for “obstruction, sabotage and fraudulent introduction of data” into the electrical network operator’s computer system.
In the context of a strike movement last summer, these employees had interrupted communications between the Parisian control center and 14 posts in the region from a computer. This had followed a DGSI investigation that suspected them of a cyber attack. They face up to 15 years in prison on this charge.
Source: BFM TV
