After the unpopular strikes of the fall of 2022, the unions of the electricity, gas and petroleum industries, this time want to rally users to their cause.
By Marjorie Cessac and Adrien Pécout
Energy unions, at the forefront in the mobilization against the pension reform project, still have juice. “We have prepared to fight this reform harshly, the battle began on January 19, and it can last a long time,” warns Sébastien Menesplier, secretary general of the National Federation Mines-Energy CGT, that of electricians and gas. “We are thinking of popularizing actions such as making free energy for precarious citizens or for public services such as hospitals or crèches. We do not want to put us on the users,” he said, wishing a renewable strike.
On January 19, employees of the electric and gas industries responded in mass. Within the electrician EDF, 44.5 % of the agents were on strike at midday, according to management. They were 40 %, according to the Gazing Department Engie (ex-GDF Suez), or 52 % and 41.4 % according to its subsidiaries GRTGAZ and GRDF. Finally, in the branch of the oil industries, the strike has reached even higher rates: from 70 % to … 100 % in certain refineries of the Totalnergies group, affirms the CGT.
targeted cuts
With regard to electricians, “interfederal union unit is a guarantee of efficiency of the union struggle, analyzes Michel Vakaloulis, lecturer in political science at Paris-Viii-Vincennes-Saint-Denis University. There are homes of internal and external discontent, several fields of conflict, against the backdrop of an energy crisis in Europe “. Internally, it is a question of fighting against the possible return of the Hercules project, which aims to split into several EDF entities, a group, moreover, in the process of renationalization, the State having “crossed the threshold of 90 % of the capital and theoretical voting rights, “said the Ministry of Economy, Friday, January 20.
Production was felt: downward charges (nuclear, hydraulic, thermal), decreases of interns, or even targeted power cuts. The deputy (Renaissance) Huguette Tiegna denounced one in her parliamentary permanence, Thursday, in Figeac (Lot).
With this reform project, electricians and gas – 135,000 employees in total, including around 80 % for EDF and its subsidiaries, 18 % for Engie and its own – fear to see their pension system disappear, one of the pillars of Their specific status, inherited from the post-war period. Close to that of the public service (75 % of the last six months, at most, excluding premiums), this model differs from the general scheme (50 % over twenty-five years, with premiums) by its plate and its contribution rate. Another specificity, it also takes into account the arduousness, allowing an early start of five years at most.
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