“The price of fuel is suffocating us”: employees of around twenty service stations of a TotalEnergies subsidiary on strike

Employees of around twenty service stations in the Argedis network, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, went on strike this Friday, according to the CGT, to demand assistance in paying for their fuel, due to the surge in prices. The group’s management reported for its part that eight stations were affected by this movement, or 4% of the sites in this network. “There is not a liter of fuel that will be sold and there is not a euro of sandwich that will be sold in the stations,” said a CGT union delegate.

The CGT, the majority union of Argedis, which manages, according to its website, 182 stations, mainly on motorways, deplores, for certain employees, a fuel budget which “now reaches 400 euros per month, for a net salary of 1,600 euros”, which creates a “financially untenable” situation.

“We are fighting for our salaries”

At the TotalEnergies station at Mont-Saint-Michel, on the A84 between Caen and Rennes, access to the fuel pumps was blocked this Friday morning by tape and the store closed, with around ten Argedis employees inside. Signs read slogans like “The price of fuel is suffocating us, we are fighting for our salaries” or “We wear the Total outfit but without the salary and benefits”.

Management proposed a “fuel bonus” of between 15 and 40 euros per month, depending on the journey made by employees between their home and their place of work. “Crumbs,” protests the CGT, which called, on the eve of vacation departures in Île-de-France, for the “blocking” of the stations of the French oil and gas giant.

The group, which says it remains “open to dialogue”, has also encouraged employees to take a Total card, which allows them to benefit from a reduction of 8 cents per liter compared to the prices displayed, management indicated. “These are the shoemakers with the worst shoes, that is to say that even Total employees have no help to deal with this explosion in the price of fuel,” reacted the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, this Friday on France 2, asking the government to index salaries to prices.

Argedis is a 100% subsidiary of TotalEnergies, but does not benefit from the same social base, according to the CGT. TotalEnergies has 3,300 service stations in mainland France.