French unions will give priority to wage demands

The French unions intend to continue acting to try to annul the pension reform against which they have mobilized for more than three months, but now they are going to give priority to wage demands, which are the main concern of workers.

“Wages are a huge problem in France”, stressed the general secretary of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, the second central in France), Sophie Binet, who complained this Monday that this issue does not appear on the discussion agenda that the Government is proposing to them in its attempt to turn the page on the pension crisis.

Binet, who was participating in the traditional May Day demonstration in Paris, organized exceptionally with all the other unions in continuity with the protests against the pension reform, denounced in statements to the press that “for the first time wages are falling in constant euros due to the explosion in prices”.

On this point, his demand is that the mechanism for the automatic revaluation of wages with inflation be restored, as it already existed in France until 1983, and as it exists in other neighboring countries such as Belgium and Luxembourg.

“The only way we have to avoid damage -he stressed- is to index all wages with prices“Because what is happening is that there are more and more workers who stay at the minimum wage, he stressed.

The leader of the first French union, Laurent Berger, of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger, insisted that among the issues he intends to address as soon as he is summoned by the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, is “the rise in sector minimums”.

Berger explained that since the minimum wage is automatically revalued based on inflation, but the same does not happen with the minimum wages of each sector of activity, there are more and more workers who remain stuck at that minimum wage for years due to lack of of salary renegotiations in their agreements.

“Therefore -added-, One of the issues that we are going to defend is conditioning public aid to companies to the fact that there are no sector minimums that are below the general minimum wage.”.

Both Binet and Berger stated that they will not stop demanding the annulment of the pension reform that delays the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, which has already been enacted for more than two weeks, and showed their commitment to maintaining union unity in that opposition.

But, beyond indicating that tomorrow morning they are going to meet to design the strategy, both showed nuances about the way to consider things from now on.

Because this May 1, which is the thirteenth day of mobilization against this reform since mid-January, and the CFDT considers that it makes no sense to organize more since that will not get the government of the president, Emmanuel Macron, to renounce that law.

Berger stated that “It must be clearly stated that the law is enacted. The workers must not be deceived: we are not going to get the government to back down with a demonstration. But we are not going to shut up and we are going to show our discontent”.

In any case, he advanced that they will accept Borne’s invitation to open discussions on other labor matters but on the condition that they are taken into account and that “wage demands are heard”.

Source: EFE