Electricity and gas unions are mobilizing against “the drop in purchasing power”

The four representative federations call for a day of mobilization, Thursday, June 2, with a strike notice until Monday 13, to obtain a revaluation of wages.

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The branch of electric and gas industries makes it common against “the drop in the purchasing power of staff”. The four representative union federations (CGT, CFE-CGC, CFDT, FO) thus call for a day of mobilization, Thursday, June 2, with a strike notice until Monday 13. Their main claim: obtain a revaluation of their national salary basic (SNB) of at least 4.5 % in 2022 to compensate for the effects of the general price increase – and no longer only 0.3 %, as had been set by employers since the start of the year.

Employers refuse to reopen now the negotiations. “They continue to” play the watch “, by invoking pretexts of calendar, the expectation of confirmation of inflation figures, possible government measures and the legislative elections [of June 12 and 19]”, deplores an intersyndical press release May 18. The two employers’ representatives did not wish to express themselves in detail, and did not communicate to the world the median level of wages in the branch. The French Union of Electricity and the National Union of Employers of the gas industries simply indicate their desire to wait at least the end of June to start dealing with the question of a possible revaluation.

The basic national salary concerns the vast majority of some 135,000 employees in the sector, apart from senior managers. This is not a minimum wage, but an index point making it possible to determine the various levels of remuneration in connection with seniority levels – excluding premiums or individual increases.

Structural problem

Even if employees have statute of preferential rates for gas and electricity, they too pay at a high price for the surge of invoices for fuel, foodstuffs and other consumer goods. A fortiori since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24. In May, with an inflation estimated at 5.2 % over one year by INSEE, the national price index recorded an unprecedented increase in France since September 1985.

For Alain André, Federal Secretary FO Energy and Mines, “The economic situation created the request”. “Already that the increase of 0.3 % did not satisfy us, it satisfies us even less in the very particular context of current inflation.” Unions also emphasize and above all a structural problem: for a decade, according to their summary , the basic national salary evolves below the consumer price index.

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/Media reports.