After unsuccessful negotiations on salaries, the EDF inter-union is calling on the employees of the electricity giant to strike on January 30.
“
A strike call is scheduled for Tuesday, January 30 to remind management that without employees at work, there is no production of wealth
,” said the inter-union in a press release.
“
It is the agents who decide locally
” to “
take back control of the work tool through load reductions (production reductions), or through blockages of activity
,” declared Thomas Plancot, CGT central union secretary within of EDF.
“
It will be decided in the general assemblies by the staff
”, essentially “
next week
”, he added.
“
There are already actions being organized on the sites
,” Amélie Henri, national secretary of the CFE-CGC of EDF, told AFP, who notably mentioned the Rance tidal power plant (Ille- et-Vilaine), “
who is preparing
”.
Nuclear power plants are already on strike like that of Cruas (Ardèche), since the last negotiation session on January 8, where employees blocked the restart of unit (reactor) 2. The Bugey power plant (Ain) has also been affected since the start of the week with a strike action, which resulted in the blocking of the restart of unit 5, indicated the CGT.
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No fear of shortages
In the fall of 2022, a strike led to delays in the work schedule at French nuclear power plants, and raised fears of shortages, in the midst of a European energy crisis.
However, the situation is significantly different this winter, taking into account the fact that the available capacity of the nuclear fleet has increased significantly and is around 85% thanks to the work that has been carried out, according to public data extracted by AFP.
“
It always has an impact, to carry out actions on the work tool, because necessarily the delays on unit outages, this has a cost and the reductions in load, this also has a cost for the company which cannot use them on the market
,” said Thomas Plancot.
However, he concedes that “
to obtain something, it will have to be over time
”.
The general and individual increases granted by EDF SA allow “
an average increase of 4.14% in salaries for the year 2024
”, affirmed management, including individual measures of increases of +1.5%.
On this last point, the CFE-CGC demands 4%, and the CGT 2.3%.