“A hasty law, the application of which is done in pain”, denounced Patrick Rué, FO general secretary of territorial agents at the height of the last strike of garbage collectors in Marseille and in the metropolis. This law is the one known as of transformation of the
public service which provides for the application of 35 hours to all civil servants in towns and cities, ie 1,607 hours per year.
A small revolution supposed to put an end to the many special and derogatory regimes various trades, the bulk of the troops affected by this reform being made up of nursery and school personnel, municipal police officers and collection agents. In the metropolis, at
Marseilles or to
Martigues, how was this law applied? 20 minutes make the point.
In Marseille, precarious social peace in schools
The town hall of Marseille claims to have settled the question. “The 1,607 hours, we are there, the city had self-entered the file”, explained Olivia Fortin, elected in charge of public action. With one precision: it is the old municipality which had imposed this change in 2018, shortly after the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office pinned it on the subject of the working time of its agents. For the time being, the “tatas”, these non-teaching staff in schools and nurseries, benefit from one Wednesday out of two not working. An agreement agreed by the town hall under … the Covid-19. They are still asking for an adjustment of these 1,607 hours for the sake of hardship, as authorized by the said law. “We have a renewable strike notice for a lasting recognition of the arduousness”, indicates Françoise Risterucci, of the CGT of the city’s agents.
Because the current “Covid development” was attacked in the administrative court by Pierre Robin, elected LR of the city council. “I have just seen that the town hall had appointed a lawyer,” notes the opposition official, before justifying: “I have a lot of respect for the tatas, but I think this exemption is excessive. First of all because the only municipal staff to derogate from the 1,607 hours are the municipal police officers, who have a reduction of around forty hours a year and I do not think that the work in the schools is more painful. Then, because this decision should go through a municipal deliberation and not be taken alone by the mayor as if he were the Sun King ”.
Municipal police, case closed
In Marseille, the municipal police reached an agreement to 1,487 hours per year for those who do night duty, said the Force Ouvrière union. On the Martigues side, “there has been no new agreement on the working time of agents in 2021 because our community has respected the working time and the 1,607 annual hours since 2005”, informs Julien Bertran de Balanda, general manager of town hall services, the only left-wing territory within the metropolis. “Only the night shift of the municipal police has a lower annual working time. This team does 1,320 hours. The other brigades do well 1,607 hours, ”he explains.
Waste collection agents, a suspended agreement
The working time of garbage collectors is a subject that has greatly occupied the media and the relationship between the city of Marseille and the metropolis. The agreement concluded on Christmas Eve between unions provides for a reduction of 15% every 1,607 hours, which would make an annual working time of 1,367 hours. “Would”, because this provision has yet to pass the legality control of the prefecture. If this were the case, it could make “case law” in the eyes of the agents of other towns who are currently on strike, like those of Toulouse.
With other agents in the metropolis
The provisions relating to the application of this law, with the exception of agents performing work eligible for arduous work, were voted on at the meeting of December 17, 2020 by the Metropolitan Council. Depending on the service, three formulas were offered, with weekly working hours ranging from 35 to 40 hours, generating up to 29 days of RTT. But to (very) modestly reduce the working time of its agents, the metropolis has set up a system of split leaves which can be up to 2 per year. And these “are not taken into account in the calculation of 1,607 hours”, notes the document. A (very) modest gesture.