The response was almost immediate. Three hours after the announcement by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, of the requisition of certain Esso-Exxonmobil employees, the national management of the CGT issued a press release on Tuesday, October 11. “The government chooses violence”she writes in this text, which denounces “unacceptable attack” against the right to strike. While calling on all of its organizations to “massive support” refinery personnel, the plant indicates that it is suspending its participation in all meetings “with the government and employers”, which leads – among other things – to the cancellation of his meeting, late Wednesday afternoon, at the Ministry of Labor on pension reform. At this stage, the union clearly chooses to harden the balance of power, to use a formula frequently used by activists.
This positioning does not come as a surprise. Shortly before the executive’s decision, Emmanuel Lépine, the secretary general of the CGT chemical industries federation, had declared that “it would be war” if the services of the State ordered the workers in struggle to resume their activity to lift the blockades of sites. A muscular rhetoric which is not exceptional, according to Philippe Martinez, the number one of the CGT at the confederal level: “It is a common language, which we hear in all conflicts”he justifies.
For the union official, the arbitration of Mme Borne “shows the concept of consultation and social dialogue of the government and the President of the Republic”. “She has changed, indeed, but for the worse! »he quips, hammering that “the right to strike must be respected”. If the power in place “send the police, it’s provocation and it could go wrong”he warns.
The precedent of 2010
Mr. Martinez would like to point out that “France had been condemned by the International Labor Organization” (ILO) for having requisitioned teams from the Grandpuits refinery (Seine-et-Marne) and an oil storage facility in Gargenville (Yvelines), where a social movement had broken out in 2010. The leader of the CGT alludes to a decision handed down eleven years ago by the ILO, which resulted in a ” recommendation “. The ILO had « demand[é] » to the French authorities “to prioritize in the future (…) participation of workers’ and employers’ organizations”in front of the “paralysis of a non-essential service (…), which would justify the imposition of a minimum operating service”. The ILO had also urged not to impose measures by “unilateral way”in such situations.
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