A salary agreement was reached between EDF, CGT and Force Ouvrière management

This is done. A national salary agreement was reached on Friday, October 21 at EDF, between management and several unions, after weeks of mobilization in the nuclear fleet, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has learned from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). Force Ouvrière (FO).

In this announcement, the employees of the Gravelines nuclear power plant (North), the most powerful in Western Europe, voted on Friday to suspend their strike action until Monday, believing that the management had responded to the demands, AFP Franck Redondo, FO secretary of the Central Social and Economic Council.

Other strikes continued in the afternoon: Chooz, Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux, Bugey, Chinon, Dampierre, Saint-Alban and Penly. Four of the twelve power plants on strike this Friday have not yet decided whether to stop or continue operations, said Julien Lambert, secretary of the Confederation of National Mining and Energy CGT (FNME-CGT).

At the Moselle Power Station in Katanom, “This movement continues for now, the employees want to maintain a certain pressure until the contract is signed”, according to a union source. According to the plant’s communication service, a strike has been announced at Flamanville (Seine-Maritime) at 9 p.m.

EDF management has proposed a 5% hike for the lowest salary up to supervisors, he said. Management has been given a 2.5% hike with bonus, the amount of which is yet to be finalised. According to the same source, these general increases are accompanied by individual improvements of 2.45%.

“This agreement tends to respond strongly to CGT’s demands”A total increase of 120 euros a month is approaching, underlined Julien Lambert, federal secretary of the FNME-CGT.

“Keep the pressure on”

The deal, which comes on the second day of national pay talks, still needs to be ratified by unions and submitted to workers at each site for consultation. The four representative unions (CGT, FO, CFDT and CFE-CGC) theoretically have until Thursday to verify that.

At Gravelines, if the deal is approved, a new vote will be held on Monday to decide whether to end the strike. “If the deal is confirmed on Monday, if the file is closed for us, everyone will be back to work, we’ll be getting our sleeves wet and, with full security, connecting the power stations to the network for France.”Mr. Redondo said.

The strike is causing delays in works and maintenance schedules in the nuclear fleet, raising fears of tensions in the electricity network in the heart of winter. On Friday, across the country, four reactors experienced a drop in production, while maintenance work was halted at eighteen reactors, France’s total of fifty-six, Julien Lambert told AFP.