Give “visibility” to community agents. This is the objective of the FDSP-CGT, which calls on the nearly two million territorial public officials to a rare national mobilization on March 31 around remuneration and working conditions. The Parisian procession must set off from the Place de la Bastille at 1.30 p.m.
More accustomed to local mobilizations, “this side of the public service rarely mobilizes on the same day”, points out this Wednesday the general secretary Natacha Pommet, during a press conference, at the headquarters of the CGT in Montreuil (Seine-Saint- Dennis). But “the salary, the working conditions, the law of transformation of the public service”, the main watchwords of the mobilization of March 31, “it concerns everyone”, insists Sylviane Brousse. For the federal secretary of the first territorial public service union, “territorial agents need visibility, because often they are the most invisible. “During the health crisis linked to Covid-19, garbage collectors, Atsem (Editor’s note: territorial agents specializing in nursery schools)the medical and social staff “continued to work, she recalls.
The law of transformation of the public service in the crosshairs
On average, “we have one strike and one walkout per day” in the more than 40,000 French communities, assures François Livartowski, also federal secretary. “These mobilizations make it possible to limit damage. But, now, the general solution to our demands is within the government”, hence this national mobilization to challenge it, according to him.
In practice, the union has three main demands: “10% more staff, 10% immediate salary increase, and 10% less working time”, he explains in a letter “to the population”. The FDSP-CGT, like several other unions of territorial agents, is particularly upset against the law on the transformation of the public service adopted in 2019, which abolished the derogatory regimes to the 35 hours of work per week in the communities.
Despite their convergence of views on certain points, the other territorial public service unions did not join the call of the CGT. The CGT federation of social organizations and that of mines and energy, on the other hand, joined the mobilization and also called for action on March 31.