Round of Chills, company Intermarket group based Estillac (Lot-et-Garonne), produces
industrial pastries. From May 9 to June 12, strike the majority of the production staff
has affected the company, triggered by the questioning of the 13th month and a retirement
bonus. ---- The strike and blockade that has affected the company's Round of Chills in May
and June is probably a foreshadowing of what could happen in many companies: the new law
called "security of employment" after the 'National Interprofessional Agreement opens the
door to multiple pay cuts. The capitalists will engulf to further increase their profits.
---- Employers' side, the strike was not taken lightly. Faced with the blockade of the
factory management has created a "community of non-strikers" that it seems included
"thirty to forty employees, production or office, says one of its members, however, wants
to not give his name "[ 1 ].
She kept production during the strike, even though blocking prevented delivery and
pastries immediately went to the dump. CGT estimates that the cost of the strike amounted
to nearly a million while the number of claims of employees amounted to 60,000 euros per
year. This shows that the first challenge was to bend the employee-es, regardless of the
price ... up to a certain point of course.
Blockade from the first day
In a previous strike in 2011, the management refused to negotiate ... until the strikers
decided to block the company, preventing trucks deliver pastries to stores Intermarket.
This time, the blockade has been installed on the first day, 24 hours 24 by rotation. May
15, negotiations were opened. To show their goodwill, then the strikers agreed to lift the
blockade. Result: " negotiations started last night at 7:00 p.m., petered out [...].
Management remains fixed on the zero point. She proposes that the return to work under the
current conditions , "told May 15 Abib Gargat, staff representative CGT. The blockade
continued.
May 28, management assigned the strikers to court for a lifting of the blockade. At the
hearing, the strikers, the voice of their lawyer, recalled that it was not for pleasure
they camped for twenty days in the cold and rain outside the factory and demanded the
appointment of a judicial mediator. On May 30, the court pronounced the lifting of the
blockade accompanied by a " fine of 1,000 euros per infringement and employee from the
notification of the judgment , "but without the appointment of a mediator. The general
meeting of strikers then decided to lift the blockade ... and invade executive offices.
This was done the next morning. Then they organized a rise in Paris to protest outside the
headquarters of the group and will distribute leaflets to passersby and bandwidths and
employee-es.
The conflict continues in other forms
The fifth week of the strike is open to a new situation: the blockade lifted, but
production stopped due to the suspension of contracts by customers of the company.
Negotiations were opened with the HRD Intermarket Group. Finally, on June 12 that it
agreed to a protocol to end strike reiterating the main claims of the employee-es, then
protocol approved by the general meeting of strikers. Work has resumed the next day, but
is not finished yet. Proceedings brought by the CGT continue with the High Court,
following the discovery by the employee-es of hidden surveillance cameras illegal in
motion sensors of the plant.
Jacques Dubart (AL Agen)
[ 1 ] South West May 14
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