In Toulouse, the employees of the public transport company Tisséo continue their strike

2023-06-08 16:13:19

During an inter-union strike by Tisséo employees, in front of the town hall of Toulouse, in the south-west of France, on April 18, 2023. VALENTINE CHAPUIS / AFP

New Thursday, and certainly Black Friday in Toulouse transport. The majority of buses did not run on Thursday, June 8, and the two metro lines will only operate until 7:15 p.m., instead of 3 a.m. The SUD-Solidaire, CGT, FNCR and CFDT inter-union displays its cohesion against the management of Tisséo Voyageurs, which “refuses to sit at the negotiating table”according to Richard Koch, elected SUD, majority union in the company which has more than 2,700 employees, including 1,400 bus and tram drivers.

Started in November 2022, the conflict relates to the refusal of the management to maintain a safeguard clause which until then made it possible to index the salary to official inflation and which, in 2022, had allowed an increase of 5.9% over the year. During the mandatory annual negotiations (NAO), it proposed a 2.8% increase effective in July and a second increase of 1% in January 2024, if inflation was above 5% in 2023.

The unions, for their part, are demanding a wage increase equivalent to inflation, or around 6%. The clause was granted in 2015 following a strike action and in a context of low inflation. The blockades began on April 11 when more than 500 employees invaded the headquarters of Tisséo. On May 11, for the first time since its inauguration in 1993, the metro, fully automatic, was stopped all day, causing huge traffic jams on the ring roads. The Téléo cable car, commissioned in May 2022 in the south of the city, is operating normally.

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More than 1 million inhabitants concerned

For Serge Jop (Les Républicains, LR), mayor of Saint-Orens-de-Gameville and president of Tisséo Voyageurs, “the salary increases have been 12.6% since 2021, which is considerable, and higher than what is done at the national level in the transport branch”. The elected official also asserts that “the safeguard clause has no legal basis. We don’t despise anyone, it’s the unions that are locked into totally exaggerated demands”.

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The movement, followed by 28% of employees according to the management of Tisséo, affects more than 1 million inhabitants in the agglomeration and its thirty-seven member municipalities. Mr. Jop also recalls that a bus driver touches “3,120 euros gross at the start of his career, and nearly 4,000 euros at the end”. For the union, ” It’s not enough. We will continue the movement, if necessary until the Rugby World Cup which will be held in the fall in Toulouse.says Benjamin Bordère, of the National Federation of Road Drivers.

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