almost two months of a strike without dialogue

“Always ready to discuss”, punctuates in fluorescent the sign behind which truck drivers from Auxerrois, on strike for almost two months, share a coffee, on this foggy morning at the end of August. A “huge disappointment” in the face of a chronic lack of staff pushed them to ” to move “ : on July 7, eight of the eleven dump trucks remained at the depot.

The rounds are usually made in teams of three: a driver, two loaders on the rear steps. ” Just before the strike, it happened that six out of eleven trucks only left with two agents,” testifies Mickaël Péro, 38, truck driver for nineteen years. He has spoken for the strikers since he joined the UNSA to give notice. Until then, none of the garbage collectors had been unionized. The last strike dates back more than twenty years.

For them, their working conditions deteriorated after the first confinement. The two-person configuration, known as “mono-ripeur”, had been implemented in waste collection all over France during this exceptional period to banish any promiscuity between these “second line” workers who lacked a mask. Their unions were worried that this organization would become the norm.

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“Since then, it has become commonplace to go alone in the back, and there it ended up happening every day! insists Pascal Brunner, 59. We are workers, we did it, but we can no longer accept this normalization of being alone on a step! » The tour alone is twice as many kilometers on foot, and twice as many dumpsters to pull to the truck, which picks up some 900 kg of garbage per day.

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“It’s really completely discrediting these people”

According to the strikers, four departures of incumbents have not been replaced by permanent contracts. And at least three agents are on long-term arrest. They ask for the tenure of the contractors. Six are already present full time, four for more than five years. Added to this is a handful of temporary workers: fifteen were thus required in May, and at least seven each month since 2021. The agents are also claiming a 300 euro increase, to work on public holidays (the hours would be paid double) and to start at 5 a.m. (with a surcharge).

President of the agglomeration, the mayor (Les Républicains) of Auxerre, Crescent Marault, came on the picket line on July 11. But he refused to negotiate in the room provided for this purpose. Without taking the time to inform the mayors of the agglomeration – waste management is however a community competence – he responded to the demands in writing on July 12. He then announced the “deprecarization of eight temporary workers”, but not tenure, accepted work on public holidays, but refused any increase, citing the efforts already made in recent years to improve the remuneration of the 1,100 agents of the community.

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