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Photo credit: AFP
An impossible dialogue
According to the inter-union, the situation has deteriorated within the company since the beginning of the year with the arrival of a new HRD. Since then, the company has been accused, among other things, of turning a deaf ear to employee demands. Indeed, employees are claiming the COVID premium because they were on the front line during the health crisis so that the company continues to operate and produce. Particularly in 2020, in the midst of the health crisis, DS Smith recorded a record profit of 585 million euros. It therefore appears obvious that the employees who have contributed to the production and to the obtaining of this turnover, receive the fruit of their labor.
However, the management refuses any dialogue and prefers to return the profits in the form of dividends to the shareholders. Because if the unions complain about the arrival of a new HRD with whom they cannot discuss, this situation is above all a general dynamic aimed at rewarding the shareholder rather than those who make the wealth of the company, the workers. Because DS Smith is certainly not the only company with this kind of policy; As shown in the article we published on Wednesday June 9, the DAHER group also had this same policy.
Faced with this impossibility of dialogue within the company, following unsuccessful attempts spanning several months by the unions to wrest their demands from the company (in particular through an overtime strike since May 25) , it was decided to set up a nationwide strike.
A widely followed strike
Following the call for a national strike from the inter-union CGT, CFDT, FO and CGC, the employees mobilized massively. In fact, in the Vosges at the Éloyes site, 90% of employees responded. In Neuville-sous-Bois, almost 80% of employees went on strike. In Trois Rivières, between Montdidier and Moreuil, there too is 90% of employees on strike. This is a non-exhaustive list but the situation is more or less the same on all the 15 sites present in the territory and having responded to the call to strike.
These figures are quite impressive since it is an offensive strike. Indeed, employees are demanding an upwardly revised Macron bonus (€ 1,500 for all), the establishment of a derogatory agreement for profit-sharing, as well as an increase in the ceiling of the profit-sharing bonus and ‘extension of the seniority bonus to twenty years, with a level of eighteen.
This first day of strike was a success, as much in the number of strikers as in the balance of power which was established. Because the management is already starting to make concessions on the Macron premium which should drop from € 250 to € 500. The inter-union continues to call for a strike, believing that management can still bend, especially in view of the benefits that have been reaped by the English company.
As long as there are profits returned, in the form of dividends, to shareholders concerned only with their personal profit, any economic claim will be fair. Because we must always keep in mind that it is the workers who produce the wealth and not the shareholders.
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