Like other trades, ski lift employees will strike on Tuesday to protest against the pension reform. The FO and CGT unions in the sector have announced that they “would carry the voice of all seasonal workers”, because very few can mobilize.
This is the case of Emma, 23, who is starting her second season in the Alps. This receptionist will not be able to disengage because she is not tenured. “Difficult” to mobilize without risking being “fired”. In the meantime, she “fully supports the cause”.
“This reform worries me”
“This reform worries me enormously,” she says. I am young, it concerns my future. According to her, “nobody realizes the difficulty of the job, even less the government which forgets the seasonal workers with each reform”. She made the choice of this life but “that does not mean [qu’elle] agree to be even more precarious”. “If this law passes, the months in the off-season will not be counted. You cannot have full careers as a seasonal worker. So, at what age will we be able to retire and under what conditions? “, she asks.
Even if in “the middle of seasonal workers, we don’t talk a lot about the strike”, she finds it “important” to mobilize, especially “on a vacation spot”. “Of course there will be customers who will be unhappy, but it also allows us to show them that without us, there is no vacation. »
The unions have already reassured by explaining that “the lifts will operate normally from the next day”, not wanting “to further weaken companies already in difficulty”. The “unlimited” notice facilitates a new day of mobilization in the future.
A reform that will scare away seasonal workers
The repercussions will then be less than those already imagined. “There are stations where it will not move at all, estimates Sébastien, 34, seasonal. Many young people are disconnected and do not ask the question. This former Parisian, in training to work in the ski lifts, will join the movement “without a doubt”.
He is convinced that the consequences of the passage of this reform will be terrible. “In a few months, we will hear the bosses complaining about not finding a workforce,” he says. He thinks back to the reform on unemployment insurance which has already “scared away a lot of seasonal workers”. “It caused the loss of 20 to 30% of the allowances when you are in the off-season”, he explains.
What do seasonal workers complain about?
For eight years, he has juggled between Savoie in winter and the Atlantic in summer. “What are we complaining about, eh?” he quips, referring to the thoughts he is used to hearing. “Between the seasons, we recover from the intense activity we have just experienced, with staggered, extended hours. We anticipate the next contract with all the logistics that entails and we try to rest. Because we too have the right to have a vacation. »
Like Emma, he thinks that mobilization can “change things” and “raise awareness”. Their dream? “An adapted status, in the same way as intermittent workers to take into account the different rhythm” and to be “finally taken into consideration”. “France is one of the most visited countries in the world, and if that’s the case, it’s also thanks to us,” concludes Sébastien.