TotalEnergies loose ballast on wages. The company announced on Thursday an exceptional bonus equivalent to one month’s salary for its employees around the world, coupled with a proposal for a 6% increase in 2023 for French employees who have been on strike for 17 days in refineries under threat of requisition. of the government.
The French oil group is “willing to consider a budget for 2023 wage increases on the basis of 2022 inflation”, but still conditions in a press release the opening of negotiations on the lifting of blockages.
The CGT wants a 10% increase
The CGT demanded a 10% wage increase, to compensate for the annual inflation expected between 6 and 7%, and to allow employees to benefit from the enormous profits reaped by the oil group. At TotalEnergies, the strike was renewed Thursday morning “by a very large majority” in five sites involved in the movement, told AFP the CGT coordinator for the group, Eric Sellini.
“We do not negotiate in the media”, reacted moreover the latter to the new proposal of the group. “The management continues to despise the organizations and the strikers,” he added to AFP, saying that “it will not improve the ambient climate”. TotalEnergies has until now made the opening of negotiations conditional on stopping the blocking of fuel shipments, after having long made it conditional on the total cessation of strikes.
Continuation of strikes
But the CGT and the strikers maintained the strikes, refusing late Wednesday evening to lift the blockades of fuel depots, a few hours after a first requisition launched by the government at ExxonMobil in order to supply dry service stations in the Paris region.
The strike also continued at ExxonMobile on Thursday, in two refineries, the CGT confirmed to AFP, despite an agreement signed with the two majority unions, without the CGT. On the consumer side, fuel shortages have settled in several regions, putting the nerves of motorists on edge.
According to the Ministry of Energy Transition, 30% of service stations were blocked nationally on Thursday, even more in certain regions such as Hauts-de-France. And the CGT energy federation called on Thursday for “the widening of the strike in all energy companies”. Several nuclear power plants were affected on Wednesday by strike movements relating to wage demands.
” Hand held out “
Faced with threats of widening conflict, on Thursday morning, the government put pressure on TotalEnergies to “increase its salaries”. The CGT must “seize the hand that has been extended” to negotiate, said Thursday on RTL the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, adding that the group, which reaped some 10.6 billion in profits in the first half 2022, in particular thanks to the rise in energy prices, had “the ability” and “therefore the duty” to do so.
He was joined by the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who invited Thursday morning on RMC “Total to take the lead and ensure that everyone comes back to the negotiating table”. In total, six of the seven refineries in France were on strike Thursday: the four from TotalEnergies and the two from Esso-ExxonMobil. Only that of Lavéra (Petroineos group) is not blocked. The employers expressed concern this week about the consequences of this strike on the economic life of the country.