10 April, 2011
Turnout by EDF and GDF SUEZ workers for a day-long strike 7 April called by five French unions was enough to cut power output by over 15,000 megawatts across the country, according to one of the unions. Upwards of 80% of workers of the two former French government companies protested last Thursday, although the utilities said only half of total staff participated.
The electric and gas workers were striking over a plan by the companies to reduce the preferential rates that workers get on electric and gas bills. French unions CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, and CFTC endorsed the industrial action as a way to express workers’ displeasure with the proposed take-aways.
French workers have had the discounted rate plan since 1946, when the companies where chartered and nationalised following World War II. The partial rate discounts amount now to between €1,000 and €1,500 annually and workers consider the discounts a complement to their now stagnant wages.
The last time management of the then state-owned companies tried to eliminate the discounts, in 1983, strike participation by 96% of workers dissuaded the companies from following through. The unions met last Friday, 8 April, to assess what next step to take if the current plan to reduce discounts continues.
Last Thursday’s power outages saw the equivalent of ten nuclear plants out of France’s 58 total plants that stopped generating electricity. Gas and supply deliveries were also halted across the country, as manifestations occurred in scores of French towns and regions, including a massive one attended by thousands of EDF and GDF SUEZ staff at la Défense, Paris’s corporate capital and site of headquarters of the two companies.