Victory for private caregivers, on strike this Tuesday June 18, 2024 for better salaries. The Minister of Health Catherine Vautrin, visiting the Somme, announces that the State is reversing course. The government has released the envelope of 460 million euros which was first promised to them to finance “amendment 33”, a measure to which Frédéric Valletoux, Minister Delegate in charge of Health and Prevention, returned in May. This amendment, which was to increase their salary by 200 to 300 euros net per month from 2024, was ultimately scrapped, because neither the State nor the clinics wanted to finance it.
“Our management must sit around the table”
The bosses of private clinics must now agree to pay their share of this salary increase. “Our strike is only suspendedwarns Stéphanie Hardy, CFDT delegate at the Sainte Isabelle clinic in Abbeville, We now need to sit around the table and have our management guarantee the application of this salary agreement.” In this private clinic, 70 employees were on strike out of the 160 in the establishment, owned by the Pauchet Santé group. They followed the call for an unlimited strike launched by the CFDT and the UNSA, active since Monday June 17, 2024 at 8 p.m.
Martin Duffaut
The mobilization was also very popular this Tuesday, June 18 in Amiens among the staff of the Amiens Cardiology and Emergency Clinic. Nearly 9 out of 10 caregivers at the clinic took action in the face of disparities between salaries in the private and public sectors. “I have worked in the private sector since I startedtestifies François-Xavier, And For the same experience, I earn 400 to 500 euros less than my friends in the public.“ This 35-year-old man earns 1,800 euros net per month, with night work, every other weekend, and public holidays. “With inflation, it’s getting complicated to pay the bills”, testifies Geoffrey, a stretcher bearer who has also been with the company for 15 years. With a daughter to support, his monthly salary of 1,600 euros net is not enough.
Salaries below the minimum wage
For nursing assistants, stretcher bearers and hospital service agents, the collective agreement of these private clinics provides salaries that start below the minimum wage. Everything is supplemented by bonuses, obtained during the Ségur de la santé in 2020, and financed by the State. So for these employees, it is now up to their employer to take out the wallet. “We have to put our hands in our pockets because we will end up going to the public hospital”warns Geoffrey.
The stretcher bearer also says he is already looking for a job in the public sector, but without success. “My job is one of the few in health where places are expensive, because it is a job without training,” explains Geoffrey. François-Xavier does not want to leave, because “Here it’s a structure on a human scale, which I don’t think I’ll find there”.
In the Somme, six employees of the Ercheu nursing home, owned by the Korian group, also mobilized.
