He had warned.
Believing that it had not had answers to his many questions about the pollution that he and his colleagues could breathe in the underground enclosures of the metro and the RER, the SAT-RATP union decided to file a complaint against his employer, for endangering others and unintentional injuries.
As the association Respire had already done last March.
The union invites employees who so wish to join in its action.
“In this way, the management may agree to give us answers,” explains Reda Benrerbia, union representative.
In January 2021, following a study published by the Respire association and the CNRS, once again showing high particle levels, the SAT-RATP issued a social alarm.
“The management received us and told us that the results of the various epidemiological studies are reassuring,” he explains.
Read alsoThe air in the metro and RER up to 8 times more polluted than outside
What the union questions, based on the "EDGAR" study - Study of the general and specific causes of death of RATP agents over the period 1980-1999 - carried out by the Institute for Public Health Surveillance (today hui Santé Publique France), published in 2008, and its version made by the occupational health service of the RATP. This points in particular for certain trades an “excess mortality” with figures which call out like + 23% for the agents of station or + 51% for the workers not qualified of maintenance, compared to the mortality in Ile-de-France.
Here again, the conclusions temper these results, listing the "limitations of the study".
“We know management has newer items, but no one wants to answer us.
What are we hiding?
asks Reda Benrerbia.
We just want to know if these excess mortality still exist.
"
RATP has always formally denied excess mortality among its agents
In a press release published on Tuesday evening, the RATP reaffirmed formally denying "these allegations", as it had already done in January 2021. "No study highlights excess mortality at the RATP", assures Grégory Carillo, head of the occupational health prevention unit. According to him, the 2013 figures can be explained by "the uses, lifestyles or recruitment of the time": "For example, it happened that we reclassify the fragile people in the trades of agent of Home ".
The manager explains that “the work continued” and that a new version covering the years 2000-2012 was completed in 2018. “These excess mortality no longer appear.
But between the strikes and then the health crisis, we felt that it was not the time to talk about it, ”explains Grégory Carillo.
It will be presented "in the coming weeks" to the trade unions, but "the SAT is not a representative trade union, which is why it does not have access to this type of information", specifies the RATP.
However, to see more clearly about these stories of metro air pollution, Valérie Pécresse, president of Ile-de-France Mobilités, asked Airparif, in January 2021, to conduct a study on pollution in the subway.
The association is in the process of finalizing the sizing of the study.
It will be launched soon.
Last March, the Respire association also lodged a complaint, for the same reasons. "All these elements invite us to hope that the public prosecutor takes up this file to open a judicial investigation," she said.