This is one of the main sticking points in the social conflict, pitting the striking employees of EDF PEI at Pointe Jarry against their management, since September 15: the method of calculating paid leave. The subject had, however, been raised during the previous conflict, and mentioned in the memorandum of understanding signed in February 2023.
Published on October 30, 2024 at 6:07 p.m.,
updated October 30, 2024 at 8:30 p.m.
Social dialogue has broken down, after the end of negotiations ten days ago, between on the one hand, the striking employees of the EDF PEI thermal power plant and on the other hand, the management of the establishment.
After the widespread power cut which affected the whole of Guadeloupe, the social conflict has just taken a turn on an unprecedented scale.
The standoff has gained legal ground. First, when EDF, via its island production subsidiary EDF PEI, announced that it had filed a complaint against “endangering the lives of others” and then, more recently, on Tuesday October 29, when the same EDF PEI summoned the General Confederation of Labor of Guadeloupe (CGTG) as well as three employees of the Pointe Jarry thermal power station in Baie-Mahault. The purpose of the procedure is to prohibit access to the control room, to the assigned persons, and to prevent any further obstruction, under penalty of fine.
In a press release entitled “In the absence of negotiations: assignments”the Energy Federation – CGTG castigated “a decay of current strikes by employers who are recalcitrant to negotiation, including under facilitation or mediation”.
However, on Monday October 21, the matter seemed settled: the two parties were on the verge of ratifying a memorandum of understanding to end the conflict, after having together made significant progress on most of the employees' demands. strikers.
But only here, disagreements persist on the question of the method of calculating paid leave, a point already present during the last conflict, in article 13 of the protocol of February 17, 2023.
According to the FE-CGTG, each EDF PEI agent would lose around six days of paid leave per year, depending on the calculation method in force in the company.
In a press release on October 21, the management of EDF PEI affirmed that “the counting of leave in hours implemented in the company as in the entire EDF group is perfectly legal. (…) This method of accounting forms – with the other rules relating to paid leave in force in the company – an indivisible whole generally more favorable than the rules of the Labor Code”. An assertion that the FE-CGTG firmly denies:
Regarding the management of paid leave, the FE-CGTG observes that EDF PEI does not demonstrate that the calculation of paid leave in hours, as it operates, is more favorable than the provisions of the Labor Code.
The Energy Federation – CGTG, in a press release, October 24, 2024
“According to the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Rennes (…), this is the granting of two additional working days (27), the carryover of rights to the following financial year and the splitting of days of leave to the convenience of the employee which forms with the method of accounting in hours, an inseparable whole, more advantageous than the provisions of the Labor Code.”
“The full-time or part-time employee, having worked with the same employer for a time equivalent to a minimum of one month of actual work, is entitled to leave of two and a half working days per month work, or 30 working days (five weeks) for a full year of work” details the official website of the French administration.
However, the employer can also calculate days off in working days, that is, days when the company is open. This method of calculation must guarantee employees leave rights at least equal to those calculated in working days.
In any case, the management of EDF PEI does not seem to be willing to “modify this system for around a hundred employees of the group in Guadeloupe”. Near the Pointe-à-Pitre judicial court, on Tuesday October 29, the striking employees assured, “They won’t give up.”.
(Re)listen to Nathanaël Vérin, FE-CGTG union delegate at the EDF PEI thermal power station at Pointe Jarry. He answers questions from Jean-Marie Mavounzy, October 29, 2024:
Nathanaël Vérin, FE-CGTG union delegate at the EDF PEI thermal power plant – October 29, 2024
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©Jean-Marie Mavounzy
