Rouens. On strike, CHU laboratory workers demonstrate for a bonus
By Valentin Lebosse
Published on
The staff of laboratories from Rouen University Hospital (Seine-Maritime) was called to demonstrate, Monday, March 14, 2022. Around 8:30 a.m., around 100 agents gathered at the entrance to the Institute of Clinical Biology (IBC) to march towards the hospital management buildings.
“No lab, no hospital”, “No to injustice”, could be heard in the procession. This mobilization follows a unlimited strike movement* initiated Wednesday March 9 by the unions OF, CFDT and CFTC. At the heart of the claims granting of a bonus receipts from medical analyzes carried out on behalf of other health establishments. “We subcontract for almost all the outlying hospitals in Normandy”, maintains a trade unionist.
“A question of recognition”
According to the unions, the Rouen University Hospital is one of the only major French hospitals not to grant this first, yet provided for by a decree published on May 7, 1958 in the Official Journal. This stipulates, in its article 5, that “staff affected in the laboratories of public hospitalization, care or cure establishments, with the exception, however, of laboratory heads, may benefit from bonuses for participation receipts made by these establishments on the occasion of analyzes or work carried out on behalf of other communities or individuals not treated at the establishment”.
The decree further specifies that “these bonuses, the total amount of which may not exceed in each establishment 25% of the revenue allocated to the operating costs of the laboratory, must not exceed, for each of the suspects, 15% of the average budgetary salary of son category.
According to the demonstrators, these bonuses can range from 700 to 1,600 euros per year. “The equivalent of a 14th month”, underlines Jose, 22 years of seniority as a laboratory technician in parasitology. “Their payment is left to the goodwill of the heads of establishment. This is why beyond the money, there is the question of the recognition of our work by the management. »
Overworked staff
A request for increased recognition after the Covid-19 crisis which led to increased activity at the IBC of the CHU, for the analysis of screening tests. “In virology, we were open on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and only on Saturday mornings. From now on, the daytime hours go until 6:30 p.m. on weekdays and we shoot entire Sundays only for the Covid, “explains Sebastian, laboratory technician.
“The Covid was a tough ordeal with requisitioned staff, night shifts, new analysis techniques that had to be assimilated quickly,” continues José. The latter denounces, in general, “a work overload” linked to the analysis of external samples, “with constant staff and means”.
As the management does not want us to work overtime, the day shifts have 30 minutes to eat lunch. And night colleagues are overloaded with external samples which often arrive in the evening.
“We don’t even ask for the maximum”
The strikers demand the application of the bonus for all agents (laboratory technicians, health executives, hospital service agents, storekeepers) of the CHU laboratories (about 400 people). “We don’t even ask for the maximum amount because we know that the establishment is in deficit”, Sébastien delivers.
Monday morning, a delegation of strikers was received by the hospital’s human resources department. In the event of failure of the discussions, another gathering is held on March 24, the day when a technical establishment committee will take place. “This is where the first are discussed, we will make sure to impose the subject at the start of the agenda”, warns Bruno Delacotte, departmental secretary of the health branch of the FO union.
Contacted by 76news, the management of the CHU has not, for the time being, answered our questions.
*Personnel have been “assigned”, according to the terminology used by the unions, in order to carry out “urgent” analyses. The others are “staggered”.
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