The waste was piling up there following a strike by cleaning workers denouncing the non-payment of wages. After ten days of mobilization, the platforms and the hall of the Saint-Charles station in Marseille, where 16 million travelers pass through each year, were cleared of piles of packaging and other waste this Friday morning. Because a cleaning operation mandated by the SNCF was carried out overnight…
The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, had issued an order on Thursday ordering the SNCF to clean the station, which has already experienced two cleaning strikes this year, because of the “risk of fires and unsanitary conditions caused by the accumulation of ‘garbage “. This Friday morning, a message displayed on the screens of the station indicated however: “a work stoppage of the cleaning company is still in progress since August 1st. Thank you for no longer littering the station,” noted an AFP journalist.
“It was essential, in the face of an unworthy situation”
“As the weekend of August 15 approaches, marked by a strong influx of passengers into the station, the State services last night supported the intervention of a third-party cleaning company mandated by SNCF Gares & Connexions, in order to pick up waste at Marseille Saint-Charles station, ”said the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture in a press release on Friday. An intervention justified by “the health and safety emergency situation generated by the accumulation of waste in the public space”, she adds and which, carried out “without incident during the night”, made it possible to “return this day to an acceptable situation” at Saint-Charles station.
“It was essential, faced with an unworthy situation”, reacted for his part Clément Beaune, the Minister Delegate for Transport on X (ex-Twitter).
The actions of a “boss-thug”
As a reminder, several employees of the private company Laser Propreté, responsible for cleaning in particular the Saint-Charles station and the Marseille metro, have been on strike since August 1. They claim that many of them have not seen their last salaries paid, or only partially. They added in a press release on Thursday that they had “filed a complaint” against their employer, Laser Propreté, denouncing the actions of a “boss-thug”.
On Wednesday, the cleaning company had said that “all wages had been paid” on July 31. After the failure of a first attempt at mediation by the departmental directorate of employment, labor and solidarity (DDETS), “the State calls on the company and the employees concerned to resume dialogue without delay”, a insisted the prefecture.