Toulouse metropolitan garbage collectors angry after the announcement of the end of the “finished party”
It’s the cold shower for the 700 or so garbage collectors in the Toulouse metropolitan area. On November 2, she informed them of her desire to end the “finished-gone” system, which has been in use since the 1980s in the city, also threatened as in other municipalities such as Marseille. I allows garbage collectors to leave once their tour is over, around 10 a.m., for a little more than 5 hours of daily work.
Or, the Metropolis argues that it must comply with labor law, which stipulates that civil servants must work 35 hours per week. With the end of the “finished party” announced, the garbage collectors should stay at least 2 hours more at the depot, “sitting on a chair watching the time go by“, or rather to exchange with those in charge, according to this trade unionist, who recalls that once the tour is over and the shower is taken, there is nothing more to do.
The end of a “journalist well-being”
In the early morning, the Borderouge district of Toulouse, the garbage trucks follow one another to attract the streets more quickly, and avoid driving traffic jams. The ripeners, the garbage collectors who are standing in the back of the truck, accuse the blow after this announcement: “We feel it as an injustice, it is an acquired more lost“, breaths one of them. No civil servant will want to give his first name.
One of his colleagues, in his early thirties, adds:
We get up before 4 a.m. to start our tour at 5 a.m. I go home quite early, around 9:30 am. It’s a shame if it is taken away from us, because it is a compensation, since we are doing hard work anyway.
A third ripener, met at the end of his tour, explains that he is taking advantage of this “well-being journalist” to pay “go look for [s]grandchildren at school at 11:30 am, and there, he regrets, I won’t be able to do it from January“.
Finished off = more traffic jams?
The garbage collectors we met were unanimous on one point: it’s over, they don’t steal it, they earn it. They manage to work as quickly as possible, to be as efficient as possible, in order to finish as soon as possible. This means that they do not all take their break (they have to return to the depot), that they run regularly, which the Metropolis wishes to avoid.
“It’s a win-win agreement between the metropolis and the garbage collectors“, assures Zouaouia Bossard-Refas, general secretary of the FSU territorial 31 union, city of Toulouse and metropolis. The union official explains that”the agents do their job as quickly as possible and the citizens can go to work with peace of mind without getting stuck in traffic“because otherwise, if the garbage collectors took more time as the Metropolis asks them, it would not be the case.
“If we don’t speed up a bit, we’re going to be honked“, warns the driver of the truck, shortly after 7am, looking at the line of cars which grows behind them. This man of about fifty years, 24 years of seniority, earns 1,700 euros net and ensures that to end at the end of the day will cause more traffic jams:
If we accelerate, it’s for us, to finish earlier and take advantage of the finished game, but it’s also because if we slow down and spend an hour or two more on the public road, there is more. traffic jams and we put ourselves in more danger than if we weren’t.
Take more time for the tour? Impossible for garbage collectors
The agents we met reacted with cynicism when they spoke of the Metropolis’ desire to slow down. They believe that if we follow “all the rules to the letter”, in particular the one which forbids them to make U-turns, to run, and which will require them to take a break at the depot, not all sectors are finished at noon. “For sure“, wants to believe a truck driver.
The unions will regroup on Friday morning in Toulouse to organize. According to the autonomous union and the FSU, the trend is not towards a hard strike who “costs too much to garbage collectors“, but more to a movement where the agents would strictly follow the rules, in particular the arrival at 5 am at the depot, to show the Metropolis that such an organization is not desirable.