South of Toulouse, staff on strike at the Saint-Mamet thermal baths laundry
The staff of the Thermes laundry, in Saint-Mamet, have been on strike since this morning. Excluded from the public service delegation which entrusts the Luchon spa to Arenadour, they deplore the vagueness that reigns over their future
“We simply feel abandoned, despised,” says Christine, who proudly displays her forty-four years of seniority at the Thermes de Luchon laundry. “Me, I am here to fight for those who remain, the little young people but also those who have twenty or thirty years of seniority”.
This morning, the whiteness machines that process the thermal establishment’s laundry remained at a standstill. The staff went on strike, tired of getting no response from the town hall about their future. At the end of December 2021, the city council validated the concession of the thermal establishment to the Arenadour group. For its part, the laundry was not included in the perimeter of the concession.
“It’s a movement that has nothing to do with the Arenadour group,” says Jean-Luc Bavencove, union representative of seasonal workers for the CGT. “The laundry does not appear in the scope of the public service delegation, and while the activity of the laundry stops definitively at the end of the season, no proposal has been made to the employees. This concerns all of even the destruction of nearly twenty jobs – between linen workers, drivers and people who worked in the laundry. Seniority varies between 12 and 44 years. What will become of all these people?
“It’s not normal to come to a strike, the town hall had time to turn around, but did nothing to offer reclassifications to everyone”, continue the secretary of the CSE des Thermes, come to support the cleaning staff.
Request for reclassification
This whiteness which in the beautiful hours of the Thermes de Luchon could process up to 7 tons of linen per day, must today be satisfied with a volume which oscillates between two and three tons.
“We are aware that there is a lot of work to be done to bring the laundry up to standard”, continues Isabelle, under CDI contract. “We believed that the activity would continue because the town hall invested nearly 40,000 euros this year for security. The mayor received us but he was simply unable to tell us what we would do at the end of the season. “.
“He told us to do as usual but I’m not going to sew bathrobes so that they are thrown away” adds Caroline, also on a permanent contract. “We don’t even know what work we will be able to do in a month.”
The striking employees ask the mayor of Luchon for a written commitment that each of them will be reclassified and do not rule out continuing the movement tomorrow.
It was therefore a private laundry that came to collect the linen from the thermal baths, crossing the barriers set up by the striking employees.