Toulouse: unease among garbage collectors after the scarecrow of privatization
At the Union depot, north of Toulouse, relations between the garbage collectors and management are strained. Toulouse Métropole has mentioned the possibility of privatizing collection. The announcement provokes anger and misunderstanding.
“No, you can’t stay.” It is with this sentence that one of the agents responsible for collecting waste from the Union depot exhorts one of his superiors to leave the break room last Tuesday. Atmosphere… It all started two weeks ago, in the same place. A garbage collector opens the newspaper “La Dépêche du Midi” of April 29 in front of his colleagues. Toulouse Métropole, which employs them, evokes in an article a possible privatization of the collection, the fault with many dysfunctions. “Learning this advertisement via the media, it is shameful. This is proof that the dialogue is broken. The management announced that our superiors had told us. It’s one more lie, ”says one of the agents, angry.
The FA-FPT 31 union has published an open letter to Vincent-Terrail Novès, vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of waste, in order to respond to its accusations. The elected official had reported in our columns that the depot was facing “unwillingness from the agents as well as broken down trucks”. But the union’s missive did not satisfy all the agents. “We have so much to say that a letter is no longer enough,” they insist.
Since the end of the garbage collectors’ strike in January, the garbage collection carried out by the Union depot has been incomplete. Toulouse Métropole has received more than 150 letters from disgruntled residents. “It must be said that we have recovered seven new municipalities on selective sorting as well as several industrial zones… We are understaffed. In addition, there are new instructions (unilateral collection and mechanical arm collection, reverse prohibited in dead ends, editor’s note). Three weeks ago, rounds were assigned to a private provider. “Reinforcements from the management were not enough to pick up all the waste,” says Vincent Terrail-Novès. Some think that this sudden arrival serves as a laboratory…
“I wanted to cause an electric shock”
In addition to the personnel problems, the garbage collectors report the malfunctioning of the trucks. The gas eights were put away after a study on the impact of the exhaust on the health of garbage collectors. “The exhaust is located on the side of one of the rippers. Many of them are full of unpleasant odors. Studies have been commissioned by management. It turns out that the emissions meet the standards and are not dangerous. However, as a precaution, we immobilized these trucks and replaced them with the old dumpsters”, indicates the vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of waste. According to several garbage collectors, these loan trucks are in default.
As the days go by, the situation escalates. On the one hand, the garbage collectors claim to “do everything possible” to guarantee a complete collection. On the other hand, Toulouse Métropole considers these efforts insufficient. The privatization threat was brandished again (Jean-Luc Moudenc, president of Toulouse Métropole had already done so at the height of the strike, editor’s note). But nothing is played assures Vincent Terrail-Novès, who wanted to cause an “electroshock” with this announcement. “Preparing specifications for a public contract is a long process. It is for this reason that in the meantime (time for preparation of the contract and conclusion of the contract after the call for tenders – i.e. several months) the agents have time to pull themselves together to make us give up. if things get back to normal, ”slips the chosen one.
Outcry from the opposition
Following the declarations of the vice-president for waste collection, Vincent Terrail Novès, in an article published on May 11 in the local press, the elected representatives of the opposition group AMC again express “their total disagreement with the comments made”. “The attacks on the agents of the Union depot amount to a provocation. To say that the fact that the agents are affected by the COVID “can be agreed” is an inadmissible insinuation vis-à-vis agents who responded present, in March and April 2020, to carry out an essential mission while France entire was confined. Reproaching sick leave is also an insinuation that borders on slander, both against the agents, but more generally against the French health system, ”they denounce. The elected representatives of the AMC group will accompany the garbage collectors of the L’Union depot in order to better understand “their profession and the difficulties” they encounter.