RATP: why the strikers are asking to see Jean Castex

Europe 1 with AFP 4:19 p.m., November 28, 2022

A few hundred striking RATP employees gathered at the company's headquarters on Monday morning asked to be received by Jean Castex to obtain a salary increase of 300 euros, while a strike movement has been agitating the maintenance workshops for several weeks. .

For his first day at the head of the RATP, the former Prime Minister Jean Castex was firmly awaited at the headquarters in Paris by "at least 400" employees, several strikers told AFP, mainly from the maintenance workshops of the metros and RER.

“We are asking for an increase in our salaries by 50 points, or 300 euros”, indicated Fabrice Delage, CGT union representative in the Railway Rolling Stock (MRF) department of the Régie.

>> READ ALSO -

 Castex at the RATP: why his position prevents him from contacting the ministers

Protesters interfered in the meeting

Instead of Jean Castex, a small delegation was heard by Sylvie Buglioni, director of MRF, as well as by a representative of the group's human relations.

The interview was cut short when several dozen demonstrators interfered in the meeting, noted an AFP journalist.

Faced with the employees' complaints, the management representatives confined themselves to indicating that they would be received by Jean Castex "in the coming weeks" and that the wage demands would be discussed "in the context of the end-of-service negotiations. year".

"Jean Castex will very quickly receive the representative trade union organizations", however, the communication from the RATP told AFP shortly after.

Reassembled, the strikers plan to continue their movement.

"The agents did not go on strike for a month and a half for nothing," said Thibault Dasquet, maintenance agent at the Rueil-Malmaison workshop.

For another employee of the Choisy workshop, the strike "is starting to be felt in the bank account".

"This is what management expects, for people to be dry and stop the movement," he explains.

Fifteen workshops on strike

Started on October 18 at the Sucy-en-Brie workshop where the RER line A trains are maintained, the strike movement has since won "a good fifteen" workshops out of 25. The workshops have some 3,000 employees.

It is intensifying and could be reinforced by a bus drivers' strike.

"I am there in support", testifies Faouzi Abou Rayan, technician at the Clignancourt maintenance workshop who also plans to go on strike with his colleagues to "snowball" and obtain "the common goal" of the 300 euros.

“We have become die-hards,” he laments.