Tuesday and Wednesday, two days of mobilization announced in front of the Cité Multimédia in Pau. These are employees of Enedis and Shem (Société hydro-electric du Midi) who are on strike for several hours a day. Angry electricians and gas workers, worried about their future. They fear job cuts because of regroupings planned in Bigorre and in the Vallée d’Ossau. In addition, they would like to be better paid, an increase of €200 net per month.
Jean-Maurice Darboucabe is an Enedis agent in the Hautes-Pyrénées. He explains that the context becomes too difficult in a context where the cost of energy increases, especially since the basic salary is below the minimum wage, and the average salary is less than €2,000 per month. “It’s been 10 years since we’ve had a raise, our purchasing power has decreased and everything has increased, explains Jean-Maurice Darboucabe. We are stuck and it becomes unbearable. Especially when we see that companies are paying more and more dividends. In 2020, we each brought more than €37,000 to shareholders. We ask for 200€ more per month, it’s the minimum, we are told that it is not possible.”
– Marion Aquilina
Among the concerns is also the issue of future mergers. Serge Saint-Vignes CGT union representative at the Shem is worried: “It is a group that provides for the elimination of positions. But we will end up with duplicates so in the next two or three years, there could be up to six positions cut out of a workforce of 24“. The first project concerns the Hautes-Pyrénées, a merger of the EGET and Louron groups. And elsewhere in the Ossau valley, there would then be the merger project of Artouste and Hourat.