The Polyceo company, a subsidiary of the Derichebourg group, whose garbage collectors have stopped working for a week in Marseille, on Thursday rejected the strikers' demands, denouncing the "
desire of certain employees not to submit to certain rules
".
For the past week, the 200 or so employees of the company responsible for garbage collection and cleaning in the 2nd, 15th and 16th arrondissements of Marseille have been on strike.
Read also: Fake garbage collectors, fake firefighters ... How to recognize them?
More than 550 tons of waste were not collected in these areas, according to the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis.
In the historic Panier district, in the city center, garbage bags are piling up, AFP journalists noted.
External interventions
The strikers are asking for the transfer of the local manager of the Marseille site and his deputy, whom they accuse of "
harassment
", according to several employees and union representatives of Force Ouvrière (FO).
“
There are several things to say around this reason for wanting to leave the local management of Polyceo, it is actually linked to the fact that locally, a certain number of these employees do not wish to be subject to the rules of a normal company
", Emmanuel Brun, managing director of Poly-Environnement, parent company of Polyceo, told AFP.
“
We have interventions outside the company;
we have seen during this movement that a certain number of those who are on the picket lines do not belong to the company
”, he affirmed without wishing to specify who these external people are.
"
The management of the company will not change because it works in a normal way
", hammered Mr. Brun.
He regretted that the employees had rejected proposals made in recent days by the management in which it undertook to "
revise the internal regulations and reset the disciplinary files
".
Read also: In Paris, garbage collectors suspend their strike, but could resume it
"
I read statements that there have been 40 layoffs but there have only been two dismissals for misconduct since 2017,
" he said.
"
We can not resume with a management with which we work with fear in the stomach of being dismissed,
" insisted Thursday a FO union representative of the company's Marseille site, Lionel Martini.
"
This strike is not a matter of money, it is so that there is a fair attitude, that the management keeps its commitments, in particular on the hiring of certain temporary workers and that there is a climate of serene work
”, he added.