The unions in the road transport sector – CFDT, CGT, FO, CFTC, CGC – called on all branches of the trade on Monday to mobilize for wages. They are calling for an increase in wages, which “hardly” reach the minimum wage, in particular to cope with inflation.
Truckers, transporters or ambulance drivers will thus block several industrial areas in France. About twenty sites should be stormed, from Paris to Marseille via Le Mans. The mobilization comes as a Council of European Ministers of Transport is to be held in Lyon on Tuesday June 28.
Filter dams on the horizon
Filtering barriers with distribution of leaflets were organized Monday morning at the entrance to several industrial zones all over France at the call of the trucking unions who are demanding wage increases. Dams causing slowdowns were in place at dawn in Orléans (Loiret), Miramas (Bouches-du-Rhône) or Lunéville (Meurthe-et-Moselle), according to the CGT.
In Hauts-de-France, two filter dams were set up at the entrance to two major logistics activity areas, one at the exit from Lille and the other near Arras (Pas-de-Calais ) causing large queues of vehicles at rush hour. In Lille, on a motorway exit towards Valenciennes, around fifty people in orange CFDT vests were mobilized, blocking the motorway exit leading to the Mélantois business area, not far from the airport, noted an AFP journalist.
Purchasing power “melting like snow in the sun”
They distributed leaflets to motorists, criticizing the “ostrich policy” in terms of the salaries of “transport and government bosses”, despite “successive increases due to galloping and exponential inflation, a severe shortage of employees ( …) and the purchasing power that melts like snow in the sun”.
“Most of the minima of the conventional branches are below the Smic”, indicated Fabien Michaud, CGT-Transports delegate. “In addition there is no will of the employers (to increase wages) because the more they give wages close to the Smic, the more they have exemptions”, he added. The unions are calling for the immediate reopening of wage negotiations after those of October which led to a revaluation of the grids by 6%.
A second round scheduled for September
The objective of this day “is to count” in the perspective of a potentially turbulent return, according to Fabien Michaud. “We have set September for a significant movement if we do not have a favorable response from the government and employers,” he warned.
A little later in the morning, the industrial areas of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), Caen (Calvados) and Moissy-Cramayel (Seine-et-Marne) were in turn slowed down by filter dams. At 11 a.m., the truckers aimed to install the same device in front of the Amazon warehouse near Metz. All road transport professionals, which includes truck drivers but also coach drivers, ambulance attendants or long-distance carriers, are called to strike by an inter-union made up of the CGT, the CFDT, FO, the CFTC and the CFE-CGC.