Partial wage dispute agreement at TotalEnergies in France

CFDT negotiator Geoffrey Caillon said Friday evening that both sides had agreed on a 7 percent pay increase and bonuses of 3,000 to 6,000 euros. However, the CGT union left the negotiating table and announced that the strikes would continue.

According to Caillon, the agreement between CFDT and TotalEnergies has not yet been signed. His union negotiators supported the deal, but their members have yet to agree before the deal can be signed Friday afternoon. Then the situation in France will hopefully “calm down”.

The trade union CFE-CGC also wants to present the compromise to its members. Negotiator Dominique Convert said “rather in favour”. “It can’t go on like this,” he said, referring to the bitter wage dispute. Together, the CFDT and CFE-CGC represent over 56 percent of TotalEnergies’ unionized workforce, with the remainder being represented by the CGT and CAT.

The management had recently offered a six percent increase in salary, the CFDT got another percentage point out of it. However, given the high inflation, the CGT is demanding a wage increase of ten percent. Even before the compromise between management and CFDT, the CGT left the negotiating table.

With her demand she wants to fight for a higher participation of the employees in the profit of the company. TotalEnergies made a profit of $10.6 billion in the first half of 2022.

The strikes in recent days have left countless taxi drivers and commuters who depend on their cars desperate as gas stations ran out of fuel or had to be closed. In the Paris region, prices at some gas stations rose to just under three euros per litre.

Most recently, the government of President Emmanuel Macron felt compelled to intervene. She had maintenance commitments for a TotalEnergies gas depot at Dunkirk and an Esso-ExxonMobil gas depot at Le Havre. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire explicitly called on TotalEnergies to raise salaries and warned unions to “accept the outstretched hand”.

(SDA)