Sewers defend their retirement conditions

• This Thursday, the day of an interprofessional demonstration against the pension reform, the sewer workers marched to defend their retirement conditions.
• Exposed to strenuousness and insanitary conditions, they do not imagine retiring at 60 or over.
• Several of them detail their working conditions and concerns at 20 Minutes .

They are only half joking with the pension reform. This Thursday in Paris, on this day of interprofessional demonstration, the sewer workers are putting on their show. With humor, certainly, but with dark humor. It is around an open coffin that dozens of them descend the Boulevard Magenta, dressed in some of their work overalls. Enough to send a clear message: for the profession, retiring later means reducing their chances of enjoying their old days. "There are no old sewers, we don't have many retirees," says Nicolas Joseph, secretary of the CHSCT in the sanitation department of the City of Paris. The profession is indeed subject to "excess mortality" and to many professional risks, noted ANSES in 2016.

Neat staging for the sewer workers who came to defend their current retirement conditions # greve6fevrier pic.twitter.com/oAYVAYTdTd

“Active categories” that will disappear

The reform establishing a universal pension system makes sewer workers jump. Like the garbage collectors, who block incineration sites in Ile-de-France and Marseille, they express their anger. "On January 8, we were told the end of the active categories", explains Guillaume, 36, manager of a sewer workshop in Paris. In the public service, being in this category allows you to liquidate your retirement from the age of 57, provided you have worked in these functions for a period of 15 to 17 years. And by being part of the “unsanitary” category, which also concerns certain sewer workers in particular, the age is advanced to 52 years.

Responsible for a sewage workshop in Paris, Guillaume explains the challenges of the reform for this profession who came to demonstrate today in Paris pic.twitter.com/neJbhb3R20

Attached to these classifications, these agents wonder: will they have to work until the age of 60 or more in the new system? Unthinkable for a profession exposed in particular to chemical and biological risks, to potentially lethal sewage gases, but also to falls, drownings, musculoskeletal disorders ... "We ask that we be stretched out, that support us, ”continues the 30-year-old. To drive the point home, he is showing the rope around his neck this Thursday.

"I don't like my job"

“We are doing an unhealthy and painful job, I signed knowingly. But we knew we could leave 10 years earlier, ”also insists Carine Moretti. The 40-year-old protester has been regularly declining for several weeks in protest. Sewer for 11 years, she is responsible for checking the absence of water leaks in the underground networks and ensuring the proper disposal of waste water, coming from gutters as from buildings.

“We walk in human excrement. We breathe gases that can escape from the fat mats linked to the accumulation of waste, ”she illustrates. If the pension reform were to pass as it was, Carine would be forced to leave her profession. "I will not leave my health at stake," she says.

"I don't like my job," launches Laurent, a CGT member and responsible for "cleaning" the sewers using valve boats. Aged 48, he should assert his retirement rights around the age of 54 thanks to his 22 years of service. If he still has a few years of work left, he has been feeling “fed up” for two years. His physical job “wears his back and forearms”, explains this agent. For him, retiring early and benefiting from job stability as a civil servant are the two advantages that led him to do this job. Hence his determination to demonstrate this Thursday. And to go on strike.

Politics

Pension reform: no, Aurore Bergé did not say "the sewers can make an effort"

• Economy
• Pension reform
• Paris
• Retirement
• Demonstration