2023-12-01 10:00:10
Demonstration during a day of national strike for salary increases and for equality between men and women, in Rennes, October 13, 2023. DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
“I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills that need to be paid. Isn’t that sad? And yet it seems like I never have a single penny left. What a pity ! » We never really paid attention to the lyrics of the famous Abba song, Money, Money, Moneybefore hearing it in the YouTube video of the CFTC union of Leroy Merlin to defend salary demands before the obligatory annual negotiations (NAO).
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Images ? An inflation curve, an empty cart, a gas pump, heating at zero… “These are indicators that we didn’t look at before, but inflation has completely transformed the way we negotiate. When I have an employee who tells me that he spends 300 euros on gas to go to work, we have to find solutions! We are asking for rates that we would never have asked for before”, testifies Jean-Marc Cicuto, CFTC central union representative within the DIY brand.
By going on strike for the first time in their history, in November 2021, with three logistics warehouses immobilized for two weeks, Leroy Merlin employees made an impression. « I think it was my time on TF1’s “8 p.m.” show that finally made management give in! Mr. Cicuto laughs today. For her, this movement was a real surprise. She now knows what we are capable of doing and I find that we have been listened to a lot more since then. »
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As elsewhere, recruitment difficulties have also contributed to rebalancing the balance of power. The union representative calculates that employees have had, over two years, a 9.8% cumulative increase, or 100 euros minimum. Almost the level of inflation over the period. Between October 2021 and October 2023, cumulatively, the INSEE consumer price index increased by 10.42%.
“A real discrepancy”
“We still need to know what inflation we are talking about! » puts Fabienne Dos Santos, CGT coordinator at Sodexo, a collective catering giant, where several inter-union walkouts resulted in increases of 5%, then 4%, into perspective. “What matters to me is not the variation in the price of the smartphone. It’s food that employees suffer from. And there, we are well beyond the 9% obtained over the past two years. » If we look only at INSEE’s food price development index over the same period, it jumped by 22.05%.
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“Inflation as defined by INSEE or inflation of basic necessities, we are not talking about the same thing. We are well placed to know this, we in mass distribution”, adds Dominique Moualek, central FO union delegate at Carrefour, where employees mobilized in September 2022. Review clauses made it possible to catch up in several times quickly outdated NAOs.
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