TotalEnergies asked employees to postpone salary negotiations

MOSCOW, 9 Oct — PRIME. TotalEnergies has offered to hold its annual salary talks a month early amid an ongoing employee strike, Agence France-Presse reports.

“Provided that the blocking of warehouses is over and the consent of all social partners, the company proposes to hold mandatory annual negotiations in October, which were scheduled for November,” the agency quotes the words from the company’s communiqué.

In France, the strike of TotalEnergies employees continues. Last Tuesday, the unions announced a three-day protest demanding a 10% wage increase, as well as an indexation of wages for 2022 to record high inflation. The unions later announced an indefinite extension of the strike.

The strike, in particular, affected the largest refinery in France near the city of Le Havre in Normandy, as well as refineries in the communes of Feuzin and Donge, the biorefinery La Mede in the commune of Châteauneuf-lès-Martigues, as well as the Grandpuis fuel storage facility.

The company said the strike would not jeopardize gas station supplies in the short term, but the Normandy plant alone accounts for 22% of France’s refinery capacity.

Another reason for fuel shortages at TotalEnergies gas stations was a 20-cent-per-litre rebate, valid from September 1 to November 1, that the company introduced to avoid excess profit tax.

Earlier, the vice-president of the Hauts-de-France region, Frank Dersin, noted that about 40,000 children risk being unable to get to school next week due to a shortage of fuel at gas stations.