Crisis situation among blood donation professionals. For the past year, the French Blood Establishment (EFS) has been warning about the working conditions applied in the centers and the repercussions on the distribution of blood bags. After the mobilization of October 21, the three majority unions (CFDT, FO and SNTS CFE-CGC) are at the origin of a call for a strike.since Monday November 1 at 7 p.m. and up to Saturday morning 8 o’clock. Questioned by franceinfo, Carole Foratier, CFDT central delegate at the EFS, explains the reasons for this strike.
Franceinfo: How do you strike? Are you stopping blood drives?
Carole Foratier: We have been calling a strike since Monday evening to include night services, but there is no disruption in our work. As in a hospital strike, continuity of service is guaranteed. Staff members therefore declared themselves to be on strike and were assigned to their post to ensure the collection. They could, for example, wear an armband to signify their status “on strike”. Support activities, such as administrative services, can stop work altogether.
We are not often on strike at the EFS so it is a movement that should be followed enough. For the modes of action, we also launched an online petition in October that we relay everywhere and we called on the Minister of Health Olivier Véran on September 9 for a meeting request, currently still unanswered.
What are your demands?
That For ten years now, the EFS has removed staff, that our working conditions are deteriorating and management only talks about efficiency. We would like the end of the reduction of staff and the alignment of resources with our needs for proper care of donors and patients.
In addition, we carried out a social report and 65% of the staff said they were not satisfied with their remuneration. And for good reason,he salary scales have not been revised since 2008. We will therefore enter into the negotiation of the classification. We also ask that the salary increases provided for by the Ségur de la santé apply to everyone. We had an envelope which made it possible to increase a little nurses, laboratory technicians, but for example biologists, essential to the EFS, were not concerned by Ségur.
For now, we will try to negotiate with the management of salary increases, but this will be done without a defined envelope. It is up to the management to obtain an envelope from the Ministries of Health and the Budget.
“We are also asking for respect for our working conditions and a better reconciliation with private life.”
Carole Foratier, CFDT central delegate at EFSto franceinfo
We want to get around the table and discuss our working conditions, our salaries, what we need to make the EFS work. We want to save blood donation à la française.
What are the consequences of these dysfunctions on blood collection?
No one applies to work at EFS and those who are at EFS leave. Temporary workers refuse to be established, they are better paid elsewhere. Even with the upgrading of Ségur, we still do not get the same salaries as what is done in the hospital or in the private sector. As a result, there are 300 vacant positions and that is the problem. The lack of personnel concerns nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians, but it is starting to affect other professions since it is also difficult to recruit drivers who transport blood bags, for example. Without these recruitments, we can no longer ensure the proper functioning of the EFS.
“We have a hundred collections that are currently canceled.”
Carole Foratier, CFDT central delegate at EFSto franceinfo
In September and October, on was forced to close EFS fixed sites. The Châteauroux site (Indre) has therefore been closed at night since the end of August due to a lack of personnel. This is an example that is found almost everywhere in the region.
In terms of blood stocks, the situation is improving, but during the month of October, there were shortages. We are going to find ourselves in a hollow and have the same problems just before Christmas. Because of all these dysfunctions, it is difficult to collect blood now, it is feared that, as abroad, private collectors come to do our work. What ethics will it be applied at that time? The EFS has so far always succeeded in ensuring national self-sufficiency and we hope that this will last.