France: Fuel Strike and other Actions

FOM and the right to strike are totally unrelated, both apply differently. I don’t personally agree with the way strike action is often conducted in a seemingly to me agressive and pervasive way in France, but I would never countenance any government that tried to have that right removed.

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I am a fonctionnaire, I am paid less than practically anyone in the oecd who does my job and I had to have at least a master’s degree even to enter the competitive exam to do it, which isn’t the case elsewhere.
My salary has been frozen for the last 9 years.
My working day on-site is 10 hours long, add to that travel and of course the work I do in my own time.
The upside of all that was a decent (not extravagant) pension which also took into account the fact that my career hasn’t progressed as much as it would have had I not had 5 children, who like me are (or shortly will be) paying taxes to support present day pensioners, etc. etc. etc.
I am also expected to be a social worker, careers adviser, nurse, psychologist, in the course of my job, I didn’t sign up for that but I do it, we all do because those specific jobs are disappearing but the problems that make them necessary aren’t disappearing.

I do my job because I love it, but don’t anyone dare tell me I should put up and shut up with the ‘reforms’ now being proposed.

Edit: I’ll be retiring at 67, and I still won’t have a ‘full’ pension. I may in fact have to retire even later.

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@barrie_wildsmith - I can only assume that you clearly haven’t been a teacher in the French national education system then, I can guarantee you that it is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. Quite frankly, I am amazed that the system still manages to recruit people at all.

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FWIW, the private teaching sector has taken a leaf out of the public sector and not awarded pay rises either, indeed, a lot of private sector and state-contract sanctioned education establishments are pushing for the “vacataires” to become “autoentrepreneur”, with the resulting loss in unemployment benefit, paid holiday, and sick leave. It has become a race to the bottom, in terms of employment rights…

For me , the whole sector is undervalued…

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No more the 12 months on clear diesel and less on the ones that have added stuff in it like rme

Ahem. This is not new. I spent 15 years as a chargé de cours in different universities. When I ‘retired’ at 68 I got a letter from the IRCANTEC (the caisse de retraite responsible for contractuel workers in the Public Service) saying there were going to pay me a pension of €80. I thought that €80 a month was a bit mean until I checked the small print at the bottom of the page : paiement annuel.

Yeah, mine is currently valued at about 50€ /year from them…not expecting it to go up in the future ! :wink:

I believe that if you are in receipt of a pension… it might entitle you to help/benefits… if the need arises ??? perhaps someone has info on this…

I was quiet content with my 48€ until I read your post ha ha

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