“Concretely for us this year it's zero!
They went back up.
Several dozen employees of Thales Avs France (born from the merger of Thales Avionics with three other subsidiaries of the group) stopped work for a few hours this Tuesday morning in the Vélizy-Villacoublay plant.
One way of protesting against the group's decision not to revalue their salary this year, when the increase is usually fixed, at a minimum, on inflation (0.5% in 2020).
“They take advantage of the Covid to justify their choice but Thales still makes a good turnover, annoys Abdelkader Benramdane, CGT union representative.
Besides, we have a lot of work, we are not affected by the crisis.
With us it is rather overtime galore.
"
At the Vélizy-Villacoublay site, imaging and microwave subsystems are notably manufactured for professional applications in defense, space, industry, science and medicine.
When contacted, the company explains the salary freeze applied to all Thales Avs France employees, i.e. around 4,800 people.
“The activities have been severely impacted by the crisis in the airline sector,” said a spokesperson.
Thales has chosen to preserve jobs and expertise.
1,500 recruitments are planned in France this year.
"
376 million euros paid to shareholders
The CGT regrets that around 1,000 jobs have been gradually eliminated in France in recent years, including 250 in Vélizy-Villacoublay.
“There is really an anger rising, blows Abdelkader Benramdane.
Crisis or no crisis, they paid themselves dividends without any problem.
"
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Coronavirus: the majority of companies cancel the payment of dividends to shareholders
The board of directors will soon propose to pay 376 million euros to shareholders for the year 2020. This is more than in 2017 (373 million euros), than in 2016 (341 million euros) and than all previous years.
In 2019, at the heart of the health crisis, the decision was however taken to pay only 128 million euros in dividends while in 2018 this figure reached 444 million euros.
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Amounts that fuel the anger of employees.
A call for a general strike is scheduled for Thursday March 1 at all Thales Avs sites in the country (Vélizy, Cergy, Moirans, Thonon, Mérignac, Toulouse, Valence, Vendôme, Châtellerault, Vitrolles).
