“I came to wonder if I was not too old”: in Rumilly, the postmen mobilized in the face of a management which does not give in

Rumilly (Haute-Savoie), special correspondent.

Between Lake Annecy and Lake Bourget, the postmen of the Rumilly post office continue their fight. Postal workers were on strike for six consecutive days, from December 12 to 17, denouncing the deterioration of their working conditions.

Since then, they have returned to their jobs so as not to cut their salaries further, but their demands remain: between permanent understaffing, unpaid overtime, pitiful salaries and pressure from management, the workers denounce a “lack of consideration”.

Car doors that open when cornering

In the bitter cold, Christian Garrette walks the narrow streets of his tour. That is 633 mailboxes spread over 80 kilometers to serve the 1,800 inhabitants of the three municipalities for which he is responsible. La Poste flocked coat, scarf and warm hat are the bare essentials to accomplish your daily mission.

At the wheel of his yellow Berlingo, he hurtles down valley after valley, parks on the shoulder and jogs towards the clubs: “We don't have time to buckle up, every second is counted. The Post Office tells us to put it at the top, that is to say from the distribution center to the first mailbox and from the last to the center. »

So no seat belt, and no reliable vehicle door on the driver's side either. “It often opens in turns, I have to remember to hold it”specifies the CGT Fapt 74 union delegate, in an innocuous manner.

Artificial intelligence to evaluate employees

The multiple demands of the more than 30 postal workers in Rumilly all stem from a problem of understaffing. And this is the case everywhere in France. Nearly 78,000 jobs have been lost at La Poste since 2013, according to the CGT Fapt. According to a postwoman wishing to remain anonymous, “the new workload evaluation system made by robots is enormously hypocritical”. In fact, to organize the workload and adjust its number of employees, the company organizes evaluations every two years with artificial intelligence.

It makes the AI ​​calculate the time of a tour with a precise scale. “It makes no sense, the robot takes 1 minute 30 minutes for a parcel against signature, but that’s in the best case scenario, protests the CGT delegate, it also does not take into account rush hour traffic. »

This is why postal workers “would feel obliged to work overtimecontinues Christian Garrette, that La Poste almost never pays” ! The agents should finish their working day at 2:15 p.m., but the CGT Fapt 74 says they often finish between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. “In 2018, the industrial tribunal ordered them to pay me 600 hours of overtime”he insists.

The direction is justified with the drop in the number of letters

Since the picket, the postmen at the Rumilly center have committed to no longer working overtime, accumulating delivery delays with the common objective of getting management to react. Christian Garrette sometimes leaves half of his “crates” (mail storage) the next day, prioritizing packages.

To this is added the “management pressure” and the “lack of consideration” of the latter, according to Rumillinen agents. This would imply that the workload given to employees is achievable within their time slot, based on the AI ​​report.

When contacted, management did not wish to answer our questions but made it clear that with regard to staff numbers, “since the start of the year, the Rumilly platform has recruited 8 people on permanent contracts and 4 agents are currently providing reinforcement for the “peak period” (period of high parcel activity around the Christmas holidays). La Poste would also like to point out that it remains faced with a necessary adaptation of its workforce in the face of the drastic drop in the volumes of letters to be distributed. Thus, over the year 2024 (not completed), there are some 350,000 fewer letters to be distributed by the 40 agents at the Rumilly site.”

“They are always making us feel guilty”

Faced with this writing, the postmen laugh jolts. “The eight people on permanent contracts are only replacements, no job openings, says Christian Garrette, the four reinforcement agents, we never saw the color of themhe gets annoyed, and then we never denied that there was less mail. But there are a lot more packages since Covid. »

“They are always making us feel guiltya postwoman is moved, I came to wonder if I wasn't too old. » Each claim conceals its confidence, under condition of anonymity.

“It’s the frustration of not being able to do properly this work that I love, they are disgusting me with it,” says a colleague. “We are tired of not being listened to and considered », replies another. “The worst was when they came to the picket line to tell us “think about your grandchildren who won’t have their presents for Christmas””a third gets angry.