Stéphane Burgatt with Manon Fossat 2:01 p.m., September 28, 2021

The Marseille garbage collectors are on strike and protest against the desire of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis to make them work three more hours a day for an unchanged salary.

A standoff started because of a law applicable on July 1, 2022, which orders a change from working time to 35 hours generalized in the public service.

DECRYPTION

The bins began to overflow Monday in certain sectors of Marseille where the unions began a new strike as part of a standoff around their working time and the 35 hours with the metropolis of Aix-Marseille-Provence.

Garbage collectors are protesting against the decision to increase their working time by about three hours a day for the same pay, or 28 more days each year.

Near the Old Port or Saint-Charles train station, the inhabitants despair of the situation.

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This is particularly the case with Philippe.

"It's degrading for the City. Between the heat and the number of inhabitants ... Especially since it brings rats, pests. It's not possible we can't stay like that, we have to find solutions ", he pleaded.

What sets fire to the powder this time, it is a law applicable on the whole of the territory from next January 1 for a passage from the working time to the 35 hours generalized in the public service, except when the criteria of arduousness apply.

Working conditions specific to the City

And this is precisely what the negotiations are about, according to the secretary general of FO Territoriaux, Patrick Rué.

"We are not in Annecy or Elliant. The working conditions have nothing to do with it. You are dealing with a very difficult part of the population. You just have to walk through the streets of Marseille to see the state. They are in. You get stoned, assaults are commonplace so I regret it but it cannot be compared to all the cities in France, "he assures us.

According to him, the social movement is very followed with at least 90% of strikers in the deposits of the metropolis, between Aix, Marseille or Martigues. 

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An opinion that does not share Guy Teissier, LR deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône and guest of Europe Midi Tuesday.

"It is simply a question of applying a law of 2019 which orders local communities to apply the law from July 1, 2022. So the demonstrators should rather go under the windows of the prefecture than in front of the headquarters of the metropolis which only applies the law, because it is the same for everyone, ”he recalls. 

"A race to collect garbage"

As for the fact that civil servants accumulate another job in addition to their profession of garbage collector, the former president of Marseille Provence Métropole assures that it is an open secret.

"In Marseille everyone knows that and it is not necessarily forbidden. But for some it can lead to a race to collect household waste, so as to finish faster to get to their other place of work", notes- he does. 

Still, the standoff seems inevitable for FO, which intends well in view of the criteria of arduousness of garbage collection in the city, to negotiate this new working time applicable on January 1.