INFO LA DEPECHE End of the practice of “finished party” in Toulouse: garbage collectors threaten to strike
To be in compliance with the new provisions of labor law, Toulouse Métropole plans to abolish the practice of “finished job” for garbage collectors. The latter plan to go on strike.
The Toulouse Métropole garbage collectors could go on strike in the coming days to protest against the change in their working conditions. The metropolis must indeed comply with the law on the transformation of the civil service, which forces communities to make their agents work 1,607 hours per year (or 35 hours per week). Or in Toulouse and in the towns of the metropolis, the agents responsible for the collection of household refuse for decades under the “finished party” regime: when a tour is over, the garbage collectors can return home. So, in effect, an employee who starts at 5 a.m. ends his tour between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. By the week, we would be closer to 25 hours of work than the 35 statutory hours and Toulouse Métropole impose a new work organization on employees.
“The job is also well done”
A meeting took place this Tuesday evening around the six unions (FO, CGT, UNSA, South, CFDT and autonomous) and the staff representatives came out stunned. “As of January 1, Toulouse Métropole wants to abolish the finished-party system but also several days of leave” summarizes Benoît Fontanilles (independent union) who does not take offense. “Management considers that once the tour is over, the agents must return to the depot until noon” he specifies. For him, the finished party would constitute “an advantage for everyone: the agents of course who can finish earlier also the community and the inhabitants. When we pick up between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., we don’t clutter the streets with our garbage trucks at 8 a.m. The fewer trucks we see in the streets, the better Toulouse is. And the job is also well done ”.
For some agents, the practice of the finished job also allows them to finish sufficiently early to take the children to school, or even to accumulate with a second trade.
For Nicolas Refutin, general secretary of the FO Toulouse Métropole union (majority), it is all the achievements of the agents that will be called into question, and not just the finished job. With less compensation: “Management offers us an annual reduction in working time of 14 hours, ten times less than what was negotiated in Marseille. In addition, the last memorandum of understanding which provided for compensation, financial and recovery, will be canceled. So the working time increases, the workload also and our remuneration decreases. This is unacceptable “.
“The agents are going as fast as possible to finish as soon as possible”
Vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of cleanliness, Vincent Terrail-Novès concedes that the advantages granted to garbage collectors will be called into question, to comply with the law but also in the name of the safety of agents: “The practice of -party is not legal. The agents go as fast as possible to finish as soon as possible, to the detriment of their health. It is no longer acceptable. Between 2018 and 2020, we recorded 215 declarations of work accidents for 500 agents. This is 3.5 times more than in other services in the city ”. And the chosen one to enumerate the risky behaviors induced by the finished game: “Reverse marches of convenience, forbidden directions, two-way streets made bilaterally (simultaneous pick-up on both sides of the way, Editor’s note. ), a poorly accomplished finish to save time… ”
The elected representative wants to be reassuring, however: “There is no question of removing all the advantages of the agents. We take into account the arduous nature of their job and we offer them a derogatory regime so that they stay below the threshold of 1607 hours per year. As such, Toulouse Métropole plans to grant them days of subjection to compensate for the arduousness, ie two additional days of rest per year ”.
The unions, who believe they have more to lose than to gain, must meet in the coming hours to determine the modalities of a strike movement to come.