Union Syndicale Départementale CGT, Health sector: still struggles to be waged
Through Isabelle Villy
Published on
THE’Union Syndicale Départementale (USD) CGT, sector health and social work, held its general meeting on Thursday, September 30, 2021, in its premises in Hauts de Rouen with a very dense agenda. Sixty-eight participants from private and public, but also medico-social were at the rendezvous. After taking stock of the many fights of the past year, largely linked to the health crisis and to arduous and degraded working conditions reported by the various agents, the objective was obviously to fix ” the struggles and battles to come “, While in Seine-Maritime, a majority of health professionals have been suspended for not having presented their vaccination schedule.
Against sanctions, against bed closures, against the breaking of the statutes
“We are against the sanctions in relation to the non-vaccination of nursing staff, against the closures of beds, against the breaking of the statutes and against the pension reform”, sums up a union representative, thus giving the future priorities of the struggles. After having been instituted as a hero during the first confinement, health professionals today deplore the treatment reserved for them, especially since the entry into force of compulsory vaccination for caregivers.
“We are not against vaccines, we are against the obligation”, insists our interlocutor, who denounces “the pressure emitted” for weeks on the agents to be vaccinated and who affirms that everything will be done to “Defend suspended colleagues. The suspension is a questioning of the status. It is a sanction which must normally pass through a joint committee, ”recalls the trade unionist. “We were asked to come to work even when we were positive and today we will be suspended because we do not want to be vaccinated”, adds, with bitterness, another professional, who sees there, like her colleagues, a “lack of consistency”.
Insecure recruitment, impacted quality of care
“We are suspending trained and experienced agents, we are closing beds: 5,700 nationally, even during the Covid, and we are having trouble finding staff. We recruit people on a precarious basis under contract, which means that they have no prospect of career development, ”the union representatives say indignantly, who argue that in the long term, it is accessibility. and the quality of care for the population that will be impacted.
“This means that we will have to sort out the patients and that we will send people home even if they are not fully recovered. For me, they are killing people… and the health care sector is a hoax, ”laments a trade unionist, exasperated by all the measures taken by the government for several months.
Fear of the reorganization of services
With the suspensions, also weighs the fear of a “reorganization of services with redeployment of personnel in sectors they will not have chosen”, observes François His, secretary general of the USD, who argues that he there are currently many programs, including among vaccinated personnel elsewhere, who are considering retraining.
Hard work and difficult working conditions, a situation of exhaustion and burn-out for the agents… the union representatives protested against what they qualified as “government mistreatment. We put people’s heads under water, we prevent them from working ”: a situation that they consider intolerable and which will obviously be at the heart of future demands and mobilizations. “The Ségur plan, the Covid bonuses, … none of this allows recognition of the work or the arduousness”, adds François His, who foreshadows the coming weeks socially busy.
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