The strikers of Storengy, a subsidiary of Engie threatened Friday, July 8 to slow down the filling of gas stocks on which the government is counting to do without Russian gas next winter. They demand wage increases to compensate for inflation.
“This morning, the pickets decided, on the storages where there is an injection currently in progress, to halve the flows”, indicated to AFP Frédéric Ben, CGT Engie union representative. This action had started at the beginning of the afternoon on the site of Chémery (Loir-et-Cher), near Blois, according to this union representative.
The government has asked for the national gas storage capacities to be filled to “nearly 100%” by the beginning of the fall to deal with the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the event of a cessation of filling operations, the restart could be complicated because “the workforce will drop drastically due to departures on vacation”, argued the trade unionist.
“The agents are fed up, they are overwhelmed”
“We have just finished our general assembly of all the sites”, he added, specifying that the blocking of the sites had been “renewed for next week, unless there is something on the table this after noon, but I don’t believe it anymore”. A remote meeting was scheduled to take place with management on Friday afternoon.
The CGT is demanding a monthly salary increase of 300 euros for the agents, to whom the management has offered a single annual bonus of 500 euros. Management declined to comment immediately. “The agents are fed up, they are overwhelmed,” Frédéric Ben told AFP, fearing that the situation would become difficult to control.
Ten French underground gas storage sites at Storengy were still blocked on Friday by picket lines, according to the CGT: “there is no company working, nothing is being done, except injection into some sites that were partially available,” according to Mr. Ben. He believes that these actions are “undermining the filling of storage for next winter”.
This strike was part of a broader movement in the electricity and gas industries for wages, to which employers responded by proposing an agreement that the four representative branch unions refused to sign on Thursday, providing for a 1% wage increase. basic national and a premium of 400 euros.