The Donges refinery should restart by the end of the month, after 16 months of shutdown, but the context is tense: a CGT delegate is in hunger-strike since Thursday, February 24, sanctioned by management for intrusion. It was Wednesday February 2, the CGT had demonstrated in the premises in support of the Romanian workers of the CIPA subcontractor, which had not been paid for 2 months. Since, CIPA has been wiped off the map subcontractors: “It’s a situation on the margins but nevertheless inadmissible“, explains the management of the refinery. The workers have also been paid but the conflict is going well beyond for Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne who is demanding social minimums for all subcontractor employees and thehiring on permanent contracts of around forty CDDs currently on the site. It goes, he says “of the security of the site and even of our independence in relation in particular to Russian diesel“.
– Helen Roussel
The turnover of temporary workers puts the security of the site at risk, and ultimately threatens our independence, compared to Russian diesel for example” – Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne
The union office has become his bedroom with a camp bed and in a corner, his slippers. He allows himself some water, an aspirin, a few cigarettes. Fabien Private Saint-Lanne visible background, closely followed by occupational physicians. “I lost 7 kilos in 7 days, I’m very tired but my determination is intact” he says. A hunger strike in particular to say an end to precariousness, dangerous according to him. “There is a very high turnover, but we work with chemicals, everyone’s safety is at stake. The 40 temporary workers and temporary workers who are qualified today must be hired, so that the refinery can operate. properly and that we become independent again”.
If there is another freighter with Russian diesel arriving these days, we will refuse to unload” – Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne
Because the refinery, when it is not stopped, does not need to import Russian diesel. She makes it herself. With barrels of crude oil, the refinery produces both kerosene, gasoline and diesel: 11 million tons per year, enough to meet 20% of our needs in diesel. Except that the refinery has been stopped for 16 months, there was the covid crisis and then the Grand Shutdown to clean up and modernize the site. Results : to ensure delivery to its customers, the refinery in turn must import. One freighter with Russian diesel was unloaded at the beginning of the week, others may be on the way: “it’s the big blur for the moment”, assures Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne. A certitude : “we were seized by the employees, if ever it happens again in the coming days, we will call for a strike and we will not unload, it is a question of ethics and principle”.
– Helen Roussel
The threat of a strike on the day of the restart
On the subject of hiring, management replies that these fixed-term contracts and temporary workers only do one-off replacements, that there is no question of hiring… for the moment. As for the guarantees requested for the subcontractors in the contracts that the refinery may sign with these companies, discussions are currently in progress, in particular on the reception or accommodation of these workers. “We regularly see our project managers to remind them of labor laws and European conventions“, also indicates the refinery. But for the CGT, it is with the national leadership that will now have to be negotiated. “Such precariousness in a group like TotalEnergie which weighs 15 billion euros in profits is intolerable”. Fabien Privé Saint-Lanne intends to go all the way. If he has to stop for health reasons, the union, he says, will take over. A D-Day strike, the day when the refinery must restart cannot be ruled out.