Many disruptions are to be expected this Wednesday in public transport in Grand Poitiers. An indefinite strike notice was filed within the Vitalis bus network by the South union, which deplores the deterioration of working conditions. The movement promises to be very followed.
Half of the lines stopped on Wednesday
Lines 1E, 15 and 21 which connect Poitiers city center to the university campus and to the Futuroscope activity zone will not be running this Wednesday. Lines 10 and 13 serving Buxerolles and Poitiers in particular via the CHU will also be at a standstill. It’s the same for line 11 between Mignaloux-Beauvoir and Migné-Auxances, and the 12 between Béruges and Saint-Benoît. Lines 14 (downtown station to Demi-Lune), 16 (from the Velodrome to the Blaiserie) and 17 (zone of the republic in Vouneuil) will also remain at the depot.
Traffic will be normal for the lines :
- 1, 2 and 3
- All school lines
- Lines 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35
- Lines O, Citadines and TER + Bus
- Night lines
The strikers accuse the management of “mistreating” them
Of the 350 employees in the Vitalis management company, 91 employees declared themselves on strike, according to management, more than a quarter of the workforce. However, the vast majority of strikers (86 of them) are drivers, hence the major disruptions. The reasons for the anger relate to working conditions and in particular to weekend schedules. The South union claims to defend “social gains”.
“We are not asking for money! We just want to recover our correct lifestyle” (South)
“For example, if we didn’t want to have Sundays or if it didn’t suit us, we could give them to colleagues without any restrictions. A single person who brings up their children alone, if they replace a colleague in the afternoon or vice versa, everyone is exchanging services and everything is going for the best. But from now on the management wants to prevent all this or set up quotas “, deplores Aline Gabet, the Sud-Solidaires union representative at Vitalis.
Vitalis, on the contrary, defends “the flexibility” of the current organization.
Contacted by France Bleu Poitou, Cédric Faivre, CEO of Vitalis, responds to the demands and criticisms of the Sud union. “You can’t ask management to do what they want.”
The management does not want “an à la carte organization”
“We are showing enough flexibility by allowing exchanges between agents, which are always allowed, but there must be a certain limit”, warns Cédric Faivre.
“We want Sunday services to be performed by everyone on a minimum of four Sundays a year, which means that we work on a Sunday once every quarter.”
