In response to union demands on Sunday, TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) promised to move up salary negotiations to resolve a strike that delayed supplies to roughly a third of French gas stations and forced the government to use strategic reserves.
The corporation suggests moving forward the start of the required annual pay talks to October, assuming the end of the blockades, and all labour leaders agree, it stated in a statement.
The initial start date for the negotiations was mid-November.
Earlier, representatives of the CGT, traditionally one of France’s stronger militant unions, revealed that the strikes they were staging will go on. Both two TotalEnergies and two ExxonMobil (XOM.N) installations had their operations hampered.
France’s domestic energy output has decreased by more than 60% over about two weeks of strike action, fraying tensions all throughout the nation as waiting lines lengthen and supplies run out.
According to the office of the energy minister, supplies of at least one gasoline product were problematic for over a third of France’s gas stations on Sunday, rising from 21% the day before.
Energy Minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, declared in a statement that France has increased imports and freed strategic reserves, which should improve the supply situation on Monday.
In an interview with BFM TV, she expressed her appreciation for TotalEnergie’s offer and her expectation that ExxonMobil’s Esso France division would make a change so that the French people would not be held captive by this social conflict and could go to work with certainty.
The local unit of ExxonMobil, Esso France, announced that it would hold fresh salary negotiations with unions on Monday in an effort to allow the group’s refineries to reopen as soon as possible.
ExxonMobil has been in the midst of wage negotiations for some weeks, whereas the CGT at TotalEnergies claimed it has been working to get management to the table before the expected start of formal negotiations next month.
After a boom in energy prices resulted in enormous profits that allowed the business to pay out an anticipated eight billion euros (about $7.8 billion) in dividends as well as an additional special payout to investors, TotalEnergies employees are asking for a 10% pay increase beginning this year.
The CEO of the company stated last week that it was time to reward the workforce, but the business had declined to enter into negotiations.
Before conducting internal deliberations and alerting the workforce, a CGT representative stated that the union would not offer any formal comments on TotalEnergie’s offer.
The largest union in France, CFDT, said in a statement that it was ready to begin salary negotiations in October while not choosing to call for strikes even if they’d called for a comparable pay increase.
The leader of the ruling Renaissance party in the lower house of parliament, Aurore Berge, stated that workers had a right to seek a portion of exceptional gains made with their assistance, but not at the expense of the common people.
Workers staging anticipatory walkouts that will affect who is unacceptable. She stated in a Sunday interview with BFM TV that the French people are forced to drive their cars.
Given the inflationary pressures and high cost of living, it is not considered absurd that people have varying lifestyles while they try to battle the historic-high decline in the health of the economy.
Most countries are attempting to reach a pre-pandemic state of profit, but given the current circumstances, it is impossible to do so.
Meanwhile, TotalEnergies has managed to almost make it to the end of the year with marginal stress on the reign inflation has on it.
