“Not only do I understand, but I welcome the fact, if the strikers wish, that they continue this strike”declared Sunday, October 16 on franceinfo Mathilde Panot, president of the group of La France Insoumise at the National Assembly while the employees of all the sites of the TotalEnergies group voted to continue the mobilization until Tuesday evening.
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The CGT continues to call for a strike despite an agreement with the majority unions on a 7% salary increase from November, and 3,000 to 6,000 euros in bonuses.
“When you look at inflation at 6, 7, 10%, in fact they are fighting not to lose wages.”
Mathilde Panot, MP LFIat franceinfo
The refusal to increase employee salaries by 10% goes badly while the CEO of the TotalEnergies group, Patrick Pouyanné, saw his remuneration climb. “We want the remuneration of the leaders to be linked to that of the workers. They are not going to make me cry over someone who earns six million a year and who, in addition, refuses salary increases. They [les salariés en grève] ask for 10%. It’s still not extraordinary to give 10% in a company that has made 16 billion in profits in six months!exclaims the rebellious MP.
Mathilde Panot believes that the fight of Total employees has a national stake: “If the workers of Total do not manage to obtain wage increases, no one will have them in the country. It is a strike of general interest”she defends.
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“If Emmanuel Macron and his government had accepted our amendments on the increase in the minimum wage and therefore the increase in all salaries in this country in July, we would not have been in this situation of chaos”, she denounced. Instead, the government advocates wage negotiations on a company-by-company or branch-by-branch basis. “In the end, we arrive at the only way to do it, that is to say a balance of power since he refuses the increase in the Smic for all the employees of this country”she explained.